


the degree of shadows

by jolie_unfiltrd



Series: i have zero chill re: gensa [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Estranged Sansa, F/M, Gendry is a Detective, Joffrey x Sansa is NOT a romance pairing, Listen up Arya and Gendry are together for some of this fic, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-01-04 06:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21192833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolie_unfiltrd/pseuds/jolie_unfiltrd
Summary: Sansa has been estranged from her family for years, working undercover to take down the Lannister family from within, even if it means beaming on Joffrey's arm in long-sleeved gowns. Gendry has quietly kept his head down and worked in the precinct with his partner, Jon Snow, slowly drifting farther and farther away from his girlfriend. Ned Stark's death sets events in motion that neither of them could have predicted.Or: three times Gendry and Sansa meet on the balcony of the palace, and the one time they fight for their lives.Or: the undercover crime AU that no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What, you say? _Another_ Gendry x Sansa that no one asked for? It's TRUE. This baby has been rattling around in my head for a while and I'm happy to be slowly spooling it out. 
> 
> So, this is darker than what I normally write. More violence, more depictions of Joffrey's abuse (physical and sexual - though nothing explicit), and way less overt romance. I hope that you will stick with me and give it a try, if anything in the premise sounded interesting. 
> 
> This is almost completed, and I'm hoping to upload new chapters weekly or bi-weekly!

NED

He fell, clutching his chest, breathing rapidly as the room swam around him, all candlelight and dark shadows and lions in the wings. “Dad!” he heard as Jon ran towards him, arms outstretched and face in a cold panic. _I should have told you, _he thought. _I should have told you her name years ago. It’s my fault that I could barely think of her, not yours. _

The room faded to darkness. The metallic taste on his tongue would have raised suspicion if he had been able to breathe properly, let alone think or reason or suspect.

Ned Stark’s second to last to thought before he died was how he failed his children, his family, but his eldest daughter most of all. He would die with Sansa still in the lion’s den, in their clutches. He had hope that Jon would save her, would finish this, but he had been hoping for a resolution for this city for years, decades even.

Ned Stark’s last thought was simple: _Cat, oh Cat, I’ll see you soon_ – and with a final breath of relief, the Chief of Police found the peace he had been fighting for his entire life, his body falling slack in the arms of his purported bastard son, who was staring at his open eyes with shock in his own. Grey on grey. 

\---

JON

Jon Snow slumped in his seat on the train, hoodie pulled low over his dark hair. Granted, it was hard to be inconspicuous with a giant wolfhound at his feet – especially one so distinctive as Ghost, with his pale fur and dark amber eyes – but he tried.

It was five days after Ned Stark collapsed at a banquet celebrating his 25th year in the force.

It was three days since Jon sat at his funeral, in the second pew, just behind the Starks that remain – Arya, Bran, Rickon. Red-rimmed eyes, rumpled suits, Arya in the same dress that she wore to her mother’s funeral, and her brother’s, wrinkled and faded to a charcoal grey.

Sansa came too, in her stilettos and form-fitting black sheath dress and veil that covered her bright blue eyes, wavering just once in his direction. She sat at the far end of the first pew, dabbing her eyes gently with an embroidered handkerchief before leaving with a cluster of golden-haired Lannisters. She was enveloped into their embrace and the gleaming copper of her hair disappeared.

It was two and a half days since he shuffled into the precinct at the crack of dawn, collecting Ned Stark’s old case files from his desk. He’d trust any of the officers with his life – except any of the ones paid off by the Lannisters, and he had no idea which those could be – and now that Ned was… gone, it wasn’t safe. It had never been safe, not exactly. But with Ned as Chief, and Gendry as his partner, it had been safe enough.

They had all been safe enough, and now? Sure, Davos was technically Ned’s runner-up, but Jon wasn’t stupid. Chief Jaime Lannister would sit, smirking and malicious, at his father’s desk, the fingers of his golden prosthetic drumming idly against the desk. Jon knew his ilk. He had once been fascinated by the man, the way he cultivated his skills, the showmanship of his marksmanship, the whispers that had surrounded him – but whatever kindness he had thought existed in the man’s eyes had been a charade. The green eyes only glanced his way long enough to narrow and dismiss him, over and over again.

When Ned had fallen, Jon had run to him, but crouched over his body, fingers on Ned’s fading pulse, he had looked up to see the mirror of those green-eyes fixated on his own, victorious and menacing. Cersei’s message was clear: _you are no longer safe here._

The reasoning behind the message became clear when he opened the unassuming white envelope tucked into the back of Ned’s last case file. He stared at it for at least a minute, not comprehending the words written across the page – and even less so the name scrawled in Ned’s terrible handwriting across a slip of paper. When understanding finally fell over him, he cursed under his breath. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

Ned had promised to tell him about his mother.

Ned had not told him – though maybe he should have guessed, based on the man’s reticence – that the news would shock him to his core, would change everything he thought he knew about himself, would change how safe he could be in this town of murder and corruption and secrets. 

Jon spent an hour in the mirror when he got home, examining his eyes for any trace of violet in the grey, his jawline for that hint of aristocracy, his heart for any trace of madness. Everyone knew about the story of Lyanna and Rhaegar. No one could have predicted he would look just like his fa- like his uncle, like his spitting image, so close that no one would ever need doubt the lies they had been told for his entire life. He inhaled and his shoulders dropped in relief – but then he remembered Cersei’s gaze.

_I’m not the only one who knows_.

Jon was set to inherit _everything_ the Targaryens had left behind, everything that had been locked in a trust for the Targaryen heir. It was presumed to be Daenerys, but she’d been fostered overseas and disappeared near a decade ago. If he wanted to claim it, it was his.

He tucked the envelope back into the casefile, hid it in-between two others, and left the box full of cases and pictures and odd pens on Gendry’s desk. He wasn’t safe here, not any longer, but he knew that Ned had been close - and he knew who Ned’s contact was. Gendry was not his best friend, but he was his partner, and part of the family near as much as Jon was, as Theon had been. A note wasn’t safe – he could call from Tormund’s apartment on his way up to Sam’s.

Jon tried to swallow around the feeling that he was running away, that he was leaving them vulnerable. He had convinced himself that this was the only way to keep them safe, that they’d all be safer if Cersei was too busy looking to destroy him to consider their siblings, their pack of unruly misfits.

They could feel safe again, he thought, the word foreign in his mouth, on his tongue, a way of life he hadn’t felt in years. Terrible, horrible things could stop happening to their family. They could finish this.

_She _could finish this.

\---

GENDRY

There was something that Gendry never understood about Sansa Stark. Or, really, the way her family vehemently denied her existence, except to do all but spit over their shoulders when her name was mentioned.

“She betrayed us,” Arya would say, face full of storm clouds before retreating to the gym to work out some aggression. (It was the first thing he had said that forced her back into the darkness of her parent’s deaths. He didn’t bring it up again).

“She left us, for the Lannisters,” Rickon would sneer as he toggled between video games at a rapidfire pace. “I hope she rots in hell in her pretty new home.”

Even Bran, stoic, unfeeling Bran, would clench his jaw and turn his wheelchair away when her name was brought up.

Gendry hadn’t been around then, hadn’t moved to town until just before Robert Baratheon’s death three years ago. Robert had decided to legitimize him, to try to bring him into the fold of wealth and gold and something rotten under the surface but had died on a hunting trip shortly after Gendry had been legitimized. He wasn’t stupid. He knew a threat when he saw one, so he had hung back in the shadows ever since, training and getting stronger and perfecting the art of slipping through crowds unseen.

He may be a near-perfect replica of Robert Baratheon as a younger man, but the public’s memory of Robert was as a fat drunkard, belly and jowls a constant reminder of the excess in which the upper class reveled in, brow stained with sweat and hair dusting his shoulders. (He tried to remember that the man had given him his name, nothing more). Those who remembered Robert in his trimmer days were long gone now.

Gendry kept his hair clipped to a near-military length. He made an effort to keep a low-profile, and a slim waist, working in the police force and refusing to just live a life with everything catered to you, everything handed to you on gilded platters.

He had met Joffrey, just the once, at Ned Stark’s funeral. The man had not made a good impression.

Neither, for that matter, had Sansa – dripping in jewels, a cruel twist to her mouth as she stood behind her boyfriend. But something about her had struck Gendry that day – something in the simple braid of her hair that reminded him of pictures he had seen of Catelyn Stark, in the softness of her eyes. He had thought, quietly, privately, that she was a Stark, and she must be mourning, and to be a Stark alone in this den of lions must be a terrible thing – no matter how much her siblings seemed to think she enjoyed it.

“She always liked pretty things,” Arya muttered into her coffee as the morning news played in the background at their apartment. _More than here, more than us, more than the North _– it was all implied in the way her sentence didn’t quite finish but hung in the air as she took another sip. Her coffee was black and bitter and she winced when she took a sip but she refused to add cream or sugar. His tempestuous girlfriend seemed to enjoy punishing herself. It was the only explanation he had for why she would be at the gym for all hours of the night, coming home with bruises from her boxing lessons, or drinking coffee that she hated, or looking at the society pages starring her estranged sister.

It was natural, Gendry would argue to himself, that he would want to know the details of why she disappeared from their lives. He just wanted to understand his girlfriend, the dynamics of her family, the tragedy that hangs over their lives.

There was a picture frame in Arya’s closet, shoved in a box underneath some old sweaters of Gendry’s that he’d been meaning to donate since last Christmas – he’s not sure he would have come across it if he wasn’t trying to find something to regift to Jon in their running joke of recycled gifts – of Sansa and Arya, standing with their arms slung around each other at Arya’s graduation from university. They looked at each other, adoring and beaming, and looked, for all evidence to the contrary, to be best friends.

But then, Robb had died. Drowned, in a triathalon, in a bend of the river with few spectators. He had been slated for the Olympics.

Catelyn had been in the horrific car accident the year following, the one that left Bran in a wheelchair and Rickon reeling and Arya even more into her fencing lessons, her boxing lessons, anything that let her hurt and get hurt without recompense.

And then, Ned had fallen at a celebratory dinner, clutching his chest and looking, eyes panicked, at the other officers attending before losing consciousness and dying there, on the floor of the ballroom, surrounded by those who had sworn to protect him.

The Stark family hadn’t been the same since. 

But it seemed that Sansa had drifted away at some point in the middle. At some point when their family became the opposition to the Lannisters and their corruption, she had stuck by them, going so far as to move in with Joffrey, to wear polished dresses and gleaming jewelry, all on the Lannister’s dime.

He wanted to know why Sansa Stark would leave her family behind, to live with a family that was cruel and terrible and rotten from the inside out, an apple with a mealy core. Where Cersei and Joffrey went, Sansa was never far behind, manicured hand tucked into his arm as they disappeared into high-class restaurants.

This glossy, high-society girl didn’t quite fit with the beaming girl from the photograph with Arya. And try as he might, Gendry couldn’t forget the brightness of her eyes, faded to a dull glow in every picture he’d ever seen of her, no matter the flashing gleam of her teeth or the perfect tilt of her head. 


	2. Chapter 2

GENDRY

Gendry sat in the back room of the precinct, rifling through the cardboard box of picture frames and file folders with notes clipped to each case and odd knick-knacks: a carved wolf, a vaguely explicit post-card from a woman named Ygritte, a half-empty pack of gum. The box was his, now; he had been closest to Jon when he left, without warning, turning in his badge one morning and heading off, reportedly, into the wildness of the North, stopping by his apartment only to grab his dog and a duffel bag of clothes.

Gendry had seen the man’s face after the funeral of the man who, for all intents and purposes, was his father. Raised him, loved him, inspired him to go into law enforcement. He had seen the way Jon had been blurred at the edges as he drank tumbler after tumbler of terrible whiskey, eyes bloodshot and mouth tight at the corners. He had sat in mourning with his macabre band of brothers and sisters in the front room of the Stark estate after the funeral – and when the sun rose in the morning, weak light filtering in through the musty air, he was gone.

It had been surprising, in a way. The Starks had always been a pack. (Except for Sansa, of course).

But Jon had apparently been told, at the private reading of the will, that Ned was not his father, but his uncle. Maybe a mother that he had never known was not enough of a reason to stay, not enough of a link to the Starks.

Maybe, he just felt he needed to disappear for a while. Gendry, of all people, could understand that. He rolled off the flicker of anger that flashed through him at the thought of being left. He was used to it. He could be used to it again.

Gendry spent upwards of two hours in the flickering light sorting through the cases in Jon’s box, trying to decipher his partner’s shitty handwriting and to prioritize them based on urgency. He had forgotten until he had been handed the heavy box that after Ned’s death, Jon had been given all of his old cases. Based on the rubber bands still holding them together, tying them up like a present, Jon had never gone through them either.

Sighing, he unwrapped the additional case folders and started to go through them. He had almost made it all the way through when he opened an unmarked folder – maybe a cold case, he thought – when his phone started to ring. Glancing at the display, he answered on the first ring.

“Hi there.”

“Did you want Chinese for dinner from the new place on the corner? Or are you staying late again tonight?” He hears the emphasis she doesn’t put on the word _again_. He hears the forced casual tone, and winces, but responds in kind.

“Shit, yeah. I forgot to text you. ‘M sorry.”

Arya hums in response, he can picture her shrugging, shoulders tense and high as she paces around their apartment. She is more restless than ever, after her father’s death. Especially when he comes home late. Especially when he doesn’t call. She refuses to let anything change, didn’t want him to act any differently after Ned’s funeral – so he didn’t. But he felt like a dick every time the casual words flowed from his mouth instead of what he wanted to ask: _Are you alright? I know you’re not, can you talk to me? I don’t know how to fix you, fix us, I don’t know if we’re alright anymore, or if we have been for the last _-

“I’m down for Chinese, though? The usual?”

A short laugh echoes through the phone. “Lots of food doesn’t count as your usual.”

A faint grin flashes across his face and disappears the moment after. “I’ll text you when I’m headed home, alright?”

She says something in response that he doesn’t quite hear but knows innately as their sign-off as he opens up the unmarked case, seeing a handwritten note of bank accounts as the front page, followed by a print-out of hair color inheritance.

“Love you too babe,” he mutters, before he hangs up and sets his phone aside to rifle through the contents of the folder more closely. 

It seems nonsensical – bank statements for an Essosi account, a seemingly random collection of newpaper clippings, a print-out of the Rains to Castamere lyrics, a collection of birth certificates. He stops on the second to last birth certificate.

It’s his own.

“The fuck…” he murmurs under his breath, tracing the letters of his name on the vellum, tracing the letters of a mother he had barely known and hardly remembered.

The last thing in the file is an envelope, addressed to Jon Snow.

Gendry hesitates, but not for overly long, finding his knife and carefully opening the seam of the white envelope, narrowly avoiding a cut finger in his haste. But to his surprise, the envelope comes apart easily – too easily for something that had been sealed shut. _Someone had been here before him_.

This feels like a precipice. A mystery that he wants to puzzle over. This feels like what he imagined police work would be like. (Instead, last week, he spent 45 minutes talking to Mr. Hornwood about a missing persons case for his wife, before realizing that the name on the urn on the mantle matched the name that Mr. Hornwood had been repeating).

There are two things in the letter: a name that he didn’t recognize written on a scrap piece of paper, and a letter. The letter is short.

_Jon, _

_You were right. I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you. _

_If something happens to me, my contact will meet you at the next big fundraising gala, where we spoke after Robb’s funeral, at the time that corresponds to the month and date of your true birthday. My contact will have a flash drive of all of my work up until now – too risky to leave it in a file folder. Hold your judgment and your tongue at first. _

_If you are reading this, it means that I have failed. The city, the force, bust importantly, our family. I’m sorry. _

_Finish what I started, Jon – but gods, be careful. _

_I’m proud of you. Your mother would have been proud of you. _

_Ned _

Gendry finished the letter and slumped next to the file cabinet, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck, horrified but not astonished at his finding. He had known that Ned Stark had been working on something, had been working on something for years, but he had assumed – hell, everyone had assumed – it was a cold case that he was obsessed with. (Robb’s death had been, officially, ruled as accidental. But everyone knew better.

Not everyone knew the truth, however).

He didn’t like going through Jon’s things, but gods, he was glad he did. The next gala – for there was always another gala that required officers to dust off their black suits – was tomorrow evening. And by some stroke of luck, he had already been on the schedule for palace guard duty.

He called Jon, swearing lowly under his breath as it went straight to voicemail. He had forgotten – the bastard had fucking turned off his phone as soon as he turned in his badge. Were it not for a text message from a man who claimed to be named Tormund that Arya had showed him last week, he’d be sure that Jon had been kidnapped or worse.

_Sam… Sam Tarly might know. _

He shoots off a quick text to his girlfriend, letting her know that he’d be home soon _please_ don’t eat all of the fried dumplings, and texts Sam before the thrumming in his veins quiets. That buzz has always meant he was onto something, or in this case, that he had somehow tripped and fallen into something significant.

**GENDRY**: Hey Sam, it’s Gendry, had a quick question if you’d give me a call when you can. Thanks.

He carefully packs up the file folders, rubber banding all of the cases together – Jon’s and Ned’s together – preparing to stick them onto his desk. His hand lingers on the last file folder, and he jams it into his backpack before he leaves the locker room, heart beating. Gendry waves goodnight to Captain Davos and starts as he feels the phone in his pocket buzz – but it’s just Arya, saying that she’s saved him a few dumplings but she’s ravenous so better hurry home.

The winky face feels forced, like she’s trying out someone else’s version of flirty texts. She used to just flirt by yelling at him – and it used to work. He’s not sure when they’ll start to feel like they’re back on their feet again. He’s not sure he can remember the last time things felt easy between them. (It hadn’t been easy long before the funeral, long before things started to feel like they were living on the edges of a city where they didn’t belong. He almost wished, sometimes, in the shadowy part of his mind, that he could blame everything on the Stark funerals. But he preferred to be honest with himself, at the very least).

It isn’t until he’s pulling the parking brake in his old Camaro when Sam texts him back.

**SAM**: Hey Gendry, I’ll call you tomorrow. The little ones are in bed.

Gendry looks at the clock, grimacing as he realizes it’s 9:45.

He can guess that there won’t be any dumplings left. He can also guess that Arya will be pissed at him – again, and rightfully so. But something tells him he can’t tell her about this – not yet. Some part of him still wants to be the hero, to find the bad guys and take them down and make her feel safe.

But she’s a Stark in King’s Landing. He’s not sure she’ll ever really feel safe.

***

His phone lights up around lunch-time the next day, and he slips around the corner to his normal haunt when he wants some privacy. It may be a dingy alleyway, but at least it’s private.

“Hey Sam,” he says as he answers the phone, forcing himself to keep his face neutral as he hears the voice of his best friend, all Northern brogue and lilting cadence.

“Gendry, did you find it?” _Jon_. 

He swallows and nods before realizing they can’t see him. “Ye- yeah.”

“I hate to ask – will you –“

Gendry cuts him off, rolling his eyes. “Idiot, ’course I will.” For Arya, yes, but for all of them. The Starks have been more of a family for him than he’s ever had. He’d do near anything for them.

Jon sighs in relief, before grunting – Gendry can practically hear his brow furrowing in consternation.

“You can keep me updated through Sam, but only when absolutely necessary.”

The silence hangs between them, and it’s the first time he’s felt comfortable since Jon left, even with the tension in his shoulders, even with the coursing of his veins. Gendry leans back against the alley wall, forcing himself to be casual, unafraid of the filth that will coat the back of his jacket. He tears off a bite of his bagel sandwich, chewing and thinking and just enjoying knowing that Jon, wherever he really is, is safe.

Or, safer than he would have been here, at least.

Jon sounds anxious as he tells him he has to go, that he has a train to catch back up to Last Hearth, but that he’ll try to keep in touch. He offers one last tidbit before signing off.

"11:05, the East balcony. You’ll meet her there at the gala tonight."

Gendry leans his head back against the brick, closing his eyes and swallowing the last bite of his sandwich.

_Her_, Jon had said.

He wondered if Jon had known all along who Ned’s contact was within the Lannisters. He wondered if Jon would ever come back.

He missed his partner. He missed when the complexities and grimy edges of work hadn’t invaded into every aspect of his life, tainting every person he knew.

Sighing and pushing away from the wall, he got back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter (11/17): a balcony encounter, and a reluctant revolutionary. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading & following along! let me know your thoughts, what you loved and loved a little less. <3 as always, you can find me on tumblr @ jolie_unfiltrd!


	3. Chapter 3

RED KEEP - EAST BALCONY - 11:02 pm.

Gendry slipped through the double glass doors and out onto the balcony, tugging at his tie and running a hand through his hair. There were some benefits to working a gala as a plainclothes officer – those little shrimp bites, for one – but there were so _many_ of these stupid fundraising galas for one cause or another. He could never keep them straight, and considering that he had worked on the other side, waiting on these men and women in their frippery, he had a sneaking suspicion how much of their motivation was to do good, and how much was to be seen in a beautiful outfit that cost more than his annual salary.

He leaned against the marble column, digging in his pocket for a packet of cigarettes and coming up empty – swearing softly as he remembered Arya’s insistence that he quit.

(“You’ll kill yourself that way,” she had said.

“That’s the goal.” The joke had fallen flat between them.)

At the sound of his _fuck_, a slender shadow took form and glided towards him in an evening gown that seemed to cling to her every curve, dark fabric covering the length of her arms, gemstones sparkling at her wrists, on her fingers. The slit in the fabric allowed his gaze to trace up from a slim ankle in precariously high heels, up to nearly the junction of her thighs. An equally daring neckline, plunging from the shadow in-between her breasts and exposing an expanse of pale skin, carefully strewn with thin gold chains, led up to a stubborn jawline that he recognized as she sauntered towards him, red hair cascading over her shoulder.

“Sansa?” he said, disbelief coloring his tone.

She smiled thinly as she leaned on the balcony in front of them, staring out over the gardens of the Red Keep. “The one and only.” She cracked open her clutch with a decisive snap, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it, taking a long drag and exhaling the smoke into the crisp air before glancing sideways at him.

She didn’t offer him one.

Gendry shoved his hands deep into his pockets, unsure of what to say to this woman in front of him, all cascading curls and dangerous curves and lips the color of venom around the cigarette. He turned over four, five, six different things he could possibly say to her – and all are possibly incriminating, if she isn’t his source, if she is in deep with the Lannisters, if she truly betrayed her family. 

And so, the silence festered between them.

Her glance strayed to him after a few minutes, and she swiveled to face him, blue eyes bright in the moonlight, hip leaning against the balcony and a sneer plastered on her lips. “Nice to know Arya’s taste really hasn’t improved since we were kids.” She tilted her head, flicking the ashes off the end of the cigarette before leaving it, still smoldering, on the marble balcony ledge. One step, two steps towards him on towering heels that put her at his height, staring straight into blue eyes surrounded by darkened lashes; all he could think was that she was far, _far_ too close. Ruby red lips curved in an amused smirk as she tilted her head, considering him.

Gendry was surprised, somehow, that he could look directly into her eyes, that her towering heels almost meant he had to look up; years of being closest to Arya and Jon meant that he was used to towering over people. Bran may have grown closest to his height but...

He couldn't help but to avert his eyes – first down to the soft curve of her waist, then to some spot over her shoulder, gaze flitting from the greenhouse in the garden, the maze that seemed to have wilted in the cold air, the delicate gazebo that seems almost out of place in this city of sin.

But he could feel her gaze, still locked on his face, tracing the lines of his jaw - the stubble that he did not shave, the shabby quality of his suit, the dull shine of his shoes, the way his jacket pulled tight across his shoulders (it was borrowed, and borrowed each time he had one of these events, and he had never cared about what he looked like until her eyes fixated on the way his sleeves were just a little too short). He had never cared before. He didn't know what made him care now, face to face with this woman who may have betrayed her family. The family he considered his own.

She toed even closer to him, the edge of her pretty gown dusting the top of his shoes, blue eyes sharpening. The way she moved was purposeful; this was a woman who used her body as a weapon.

“And tell me, where is your pretty little partner?”

“Arya?” his brows scrunched together but she interrupted him with a laugh that sounded like shattering glass.

“No, _Jon_.”

She reached into her clutch once more, pulling out a breath mint as she averted her gaze and whispered: “Is he safe?” He watched her place the mint delicately on her tongue before his brain caught up that she had asked him a question, that she had asked him about his partner, about _Jon. _

He nodded, near imperceptibly.

He hadn’t even realized her shoulders were tensed until they lowered, minutely, and her eyes flicked to the side. Sansa blinked rapidly a few times and exhaled heavily through her teeth.

“It’s you, then?” he murmured, pulling his hand from his pocket to lean his elbow on the balcony, considering her with new eyes.

“Don’t tell them,” she ordered, voice quietly imperious, looking down her nose at him - it is too thin, where Arya's is Grecian, broad, more like her father's. There was something in her eyes that seemed... brittle. Fragile. 

For all her steel and glitter and facade of a fuck-all attitude - he was too close not to see the tension in her brow, the spot on her lips where she has bitten down one too many times, the bitterness in her eyes. He had suspected, but actually witnessing the duality contained in her, it surprised him, though perhaps it shouldn't have. He found himself a little ashamed, a little triumphant.

But when he opened his mouth to protest, she shook her head once, quick and brief. “Tell Davos, and only him, and do _nothing _else, do you understand me?”

(The look in her eyes - panicked, desperate, envious - was enough of an explanation; it isn't safe for anyone else, not yet.

It may never be.

But she was doing what she could).

"I understand," he said quietly, thinking of all the secrets he has kept, all of the secrets he will keep.

The silence hung in the scant inches between them like an errant spider, spinning its web. Gendry recognized, distantly, that he should step away; he couldn’t quite bring himself to do so.

Sansa allowed a blink in acknowledgement, before she pulled back and curled her lip and looked down her nose at him, raising her voice just enough that anyone passing through the doors would be able to hear her, saying something cutting enough about his pathetic, meaningless job and his stupid, ugly girlfriend and their miserable life together and and and...

In the darkness, they may not notice her hand slipping into the clutch at her side.

And then, in the moonlight, they may not be able to see her pale hand sliding a silver flash drive onto the balcony ledge, just underneath his hand. Gendry marveled at her, just a little.

As he wrapped his calloused fingers around the still warm drive, his fingers grazed hers gently – and she jolted, eyes wide, teetering backwards on her heels like a startled deer.

It was only a moment, however, and she slipped back into her role as easily as a snake sheds its skin, gliding past him, all legs and glimmering jewels and the scent of apricots that lingers on the balcony long after she has gone.

Gendry was left on the balcony with a flash drive that he surreptitiously slipped into his sock while pretending to tie his shoe.

Even in the dim light, he had been able to tell that it was engraved with a wolf.

\---

JON

Jon hadn’t meant for this to happen. A reluctant, wry grin crossed his weather-worn face, dark curls pulled back and eyes tired, but triumphant. He supposed that could be his life motto: didn’t mean for this to happen, but while we’re here…

It hadn’t taken long for the word to spread – despite their best intentions – once he arrived in the North. Sam, for all that he was a wonderful, thoughtful friend, also had a shrewd political eye. He had been raised under a politician and couldn’t help but to think like one. Considerate as always, he had asked Jon before starting to plant the rumors – a Targaryen prince, risen again, a dragon raised in a wolf’s den and so with teeth twice as sharp.

Jon had thought first of Ned, and the taste of betrayal. Then, of Arya, Bran, Rickon, Gendry… Sansa.

He had nodded, sharply, swallowing heavily. Faith was something he wore as heavy as a shroud (other people’s faith in him threatened to drown him completely). But it turns out that a rebellion had been stewing for years, and all they needed was a unifying cause.

And now, here they were – thousands and thousands of people, a powder keg ready to strike.

As he stood up in front of the leaders, knowing that the glow of the phones indicated that this was being recorded, knowing that they would all be listening and that this would be irrevocable proof of this revolution he was, apparently, heading.

Like he said, he hadn’t meant for this to happen.

He also didn’t mean to trip over his words at the outset – when his eyes surveyed the gathered crowd and there, in the back, a glimmer of gold caught his attention.

Jaime Lannister standing, bold as brass, arms crossed defiantly in front of him, the gold obvious in the half-light of the room. He postured next to a woman with shoulders to match his own, the crop of her platinum hair only called her eyes to more attention – like sapphires, like tanzanite, like Sansa’s but a shade darker. The way they stood together – close but not quite touching, but not quite like they wouldn’t want to - reminded him of binary stars, burning ever brighter as they draw closer and closer together. When Jon’s eyes met Jaime’s, the older man did not look away, but the corner of his mouth quirked up in a grin, taunting and teasing but without the cruelty he had come to associate with those green eyes.

His gaze swept towards Davos. Davos nodded.

Jon started again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter (12/1): my favorite chapter so far - a glimpse into sansa & gendry's individual lives, contemplating what their lives have become.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my favorite chapter thus far: we finally get insight into Sansa's headspace.

SANSA

It hadn’t started out like this. With the Lannisters, she means, shedding her jewelry carelessly in a porcelain dish on her vanity, pulling the earrings out and taking pleasure in the way they clink together and threaten to shatter.

She stepped out of the dress, leaving it on the floor for the staff to deal with in the morning, and coiled her hair into a knot at the top of her head. Her sigh echoed in the drafty room as she glanced at the clock.

_2:34._ A lady’s work is never done, it seems.

Sansa stepped into the expansive bathroom, shedding layer after layer of lace until she can look at herself, properly, in the mirror – the bruises around her hips in the shape of hands, the purple imprints on the soft, tender flesh of her upper arms, the scars working their way up her thighs. Joffrey had learned to not leave marks where people could see them, and Sansa had learned to be grateful for that.

And tonight? She was grateful for a fiancé whose mealy green eyes wandered constantly, whose hands grasped at her body only when he remembered, when he felt that he was owed something, owed her. (Her mother was often kind enough to remind him, kohl-lined eyes glinting in the candlelight as she made eye-contact with Sansa). These bruises were nearly a week old, nearly faded enough that she could see the porcelain pallor of her skin – but the new ones would appear soon enough.

She ran a scalding bath, barely able to wait until the steam settles before she plunges in, intent on scrubbing every glance, every sideways look at _that Stark girl_ from her skin. Every press of his wormy lips against her skin, every thrust of his narrow hips against her own as she moaned convincingly into his coverlet, every possessive grab of Joffrey’s hand on her waist when she dared to stray too far.

Sansa wanted to rip his head off with her teeth, to claw through his carotid artery, to push him on his knees and deliver a warning shot that could never be misconstrued. Instead, she had to melt into his touch, wrapping her arm around his waist and simpering up at him, besotted and love-struck and silly as a dove.

_Little dove. Little bird. Sweetling. _

It isn’t until she’s near buried underneath the bubbles, having scrubbed every inch of her body to get the feeling of Joffrey’s hands off of her, that she allows herself to remember.

It had started with Petyr Baelish.

Well, in truth, it had started before that – when Sansa’s friend Jeyne had come to her, wracked with sobs and guilt and despair, about the man in the suit who had talked her into a corner, who had lifted her skirt and pulled down her dress and all the while, whispered in her ear about what a sweet girl she was. It had started when she had had an idea and brought it to the Chief of Police.

(Jeyne’s family had moved away after her father had been offered a new, sparkly, wonderful job. The dullness in Jeyne’s eyes made Sansa wonder whether Baelish had arranged that as well, a promise of freedom in exchange for her silence. Sansa could be silent, she could be beguiling, she could be naïve. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. She could do that.

She had been doing that all of her life).

Ned Stark had said no. Then, when pressed, he had said _absolutely not_. Then, when she refused to relent, stubborn set of her jaw so similar to her mother’s, to her uncle’s, to her dead aunt’s – he gave in, rubbing his tired face with his hands, the beard on his chin always a few days past its prime. But for his sweet daughter, for the redheaded babe Cat had placed into his arms that had grown-up into a teenaged girl obsessed with the beauty of things who had somehow transformed into this woman in front of him, red of hair and sharp of teeth, with the look of a mountain in her spine – there were two conditions to her mission.

The first: she would be undercover, and no one must know – for she would be in more danger than she could have ever dreamed. Ned had seen the records, had heard the rumors, had only agreed to this because he had implicit trust in his daughter’s cunning. Everyone else looked at her and saw the frills, but he could see the dagger underneath.

And the second, the most important, the crux: she must tell Ned the moment, the very millisecond, that she believed he was going to touch her, to incriminate himself, to confess to any one of his multitude of nefarious deeds. Any single one would be enough to incriminate him, to lock him away for life, so she must not hesitate, must not wait, must not allow him to touch an inch of her skin.

Sansa had nodded, agreeing and smiling prettily until Ned relaxed just the slightest bit.

But she was a wolf, and she had come hungry for blood.

So, in secret – for her father must _never _know, she would say, eyes wide and innocent and too much like her mother’s eyes to give him any room to say no - she let him teach her. Let him coach her, groom her. Let him think the stars in her eyes were for his oily mustache, let him believe she leaned on his shoulder to feel his warmth. He let his guard down. He told her his secrets, he trusted her, he wanted to make her his lady wife – and all of that, even altogether, was not too much, nor enough to punish him the way he deserved.

But one night, he dared go too far, and - fueled by too much wine and a ever-so-clumsy slip of her fingers over the top of his nightly goblet of dark wine – Petyr Baelish died, head down on a letter detailing his many, many transgressions, in a room that smelled of starfall.

Only those that had been raised in the North would know the scent, the cloying sweetness mingling in the air, as if he had lit a very specific candle in the hours before his death. And only someone who had been raised as she had, one foot in the modern world and one in the world of magic and witches, would know the legend of how it carried death’s gift in its pretty petals.

But even if they knew the tall tale, by the time someone found the body, the smell had mostly dissipated.

She dressed in black and attended his funeral and she wept, prettily, as she did all things, at the passing of a man who had so much, still, to give his country. She wiped away her tears with an embroidered handkerchief and looked up through her lashes at Joffrey when he offered her his arm to walk from the gravesite. Her father’s gaze was unfathomable – but seemed to fixate on relief. That he died before he could hurt her, that he never laid a hand on her. He was wrong on both counts, of course, but Sansa wouldn’t be the one to tell him that.

She had felt so clever, so full of righteous vengeance; how could she have possibly predicted the dominos tumbling down and down? How could she have known that trying to fix her mistakes would cost her the entire Stark family? How could she not have seen the shimmering façade that her life would become, secrets layered over steel over sharp teeth over the softest silk?

She tilts her head back and stares, unseeing and uncaring, at the ceiling, forcing her mind onto anything else.

Gendry was a… surprise. She hadn’t ever met her sister’s boyfriend – and why would she? – but there was a kindness in his eyes, a surprising comfort in the way he moved, in the way his shoulders filled the suit jacket. He had been easy to trust.

She turns the phrase over in her mind a few times before discarding it. She trusted her father, she trusted Jon, and if Jon had sent Gendry, of course she would trust him, as well.

He had also been, she muses privately, not horrible to look at – sparkling blue eyes that lingered on her mouth, or her hands, but avoided, carefully – as he should – the smooth expanse of her thigh, the plunging neckline meant to entice every mortal man. It had been a habit, to notice how men looked at her, and she found that, on the whole, she was constantly disappointed.

Gendry had not disappointed her, not yet. But then, she barely knew him. And the feeling of his fingertips against her own – the way her body reacted (a full body flush, a heat, a thrumming) – she supposed she could explain it away with the knowledge that no one touches her like that, not any more. Not with kindness. Not carefully. Not with trust.

But she couldn’t quite explain it, as hard as she tried. She had never reacted like that when a man touched her before – not when she and Theon used to play kissing games as children, before… not when Jon would escort her from parties in her early years, a soft hand on her back, her pre-adolescent heart yearning and wishing.

Sansa sunk low in the bath until she was nearly hidden under the iridescent foam on the top of the water, sliding her fingers over each other and wishing they would stop _burning_. She rose from the bath, wrapping a towel around herself and stubbornly clenching her hands into fists.

It was nothing. It was _nothing_.

The mirror revealed the bruises beginning to form around her forearms, around her wrists. Gods, but she hated wearing long sleeves in the summer. Perhaps she should mention off-hand to Cersei that her gowns would be less expensive if she didn’t need yards of additional fabric to cover up the signs of Joff’s love for her.

She pulled on a frothy silk concoction, meant to entice and seduce and if she could burn it, she would. She collapsed into bed and thinks again of blue eyes, of the flash drive entrusted into his careful, calloused hands.

She wondered how long it will take for the rest of the dominos to tumble, what sins she will commit next.

She wondered if her family would ever forgive her.

(She wondered if she would ever forgive herself). 

*** 

GENDRY

Gendry isn’t surprised that he is still up and staring at the clock across from their bed in the wee hours of the morning. He had come home near 2 am, carefully hung his suit back up in the narrow closet and crawled into bed. Arya had barely stirred, hair falling in her face and an old rock-band t-shirt drowning her petite form. It hurt to look at her sometimes, to remember who they had been, once – all fire and passion and temper, yelling _I love you _to drown out the sound of their problems. And it had worked, for a while. But now, they were in a comfortable rut – for she was his family, still, even now, probably forever, and they needed him, and she still looked at him with that look sometimes and –

He rolled to his stomach, stretching his arms beneath the pillow and decidedly not moving away when Arya’s frigid toes grazes his calf. Perhaps, they should try again, to be what they were – or to be something new, something they could become, together.

Glancing at the clock once more – _2:34, gods_ – he gave up. He had tried to settle in for sleep, he really had, but his blood was still thrumming in his veins, the flash drive stashed in the roll of his socks in his bedside table drawer drawing him in like a beacon, like a light, like a pair of red lips against the pale cigarette.

The computer in his makeshift office – an old laptop on an older desk they had found one day on the side of the road and hauled what felt like three miles uphill in the lazy summer heat – hummed unhappily as he booted it up for the first time in weeks. He drummed his fingers against his knee and tried to insert the flash drive three times before he finally got it right. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this, like he was on the edge of something bigger than himself.

Like he could actually do some good in this godforsaken town.

The folders were organized, neatly, by category, and then by person. Gendry scrolled through them for the better part of an hour, hand over his mouth as the mountain of proof kept building and building into a match tower he’d be happy to see burn. He was astounded at the crisp organization of the data, of the pristine quality of the scanned documents, of the methodical gathering of evidence.

He could picture her scoffing, tossing her hair and shrugging:_ “So I can use a scanner, that makes me impressive?” _

This was not a woman besotted by Joffrey. This was not a woman who sided with the Lannisters above the Starks. This was not a woman who had betrayed her family – she had done it, as far as he could tell, to try to save them, to expose the lions for their misdeeds and cruelty and scheming. A pretty face, a mean snarl, and a careful captivation of the family that she ached to destroy. He found that the more he found out about Sansa Stark, the less he felt like he knew her, at all – and the more he somehow, inexplicably, wanted to know. 

He had jogged halfway up the stairs to shake Arya awake, to tell her about the strange duality of her sister, the moonlight and the dark dress and the way her voice shook, just barely, when she asked if Jon was safe – when he remembered the desperation in her voice, the fear. _Don’t tell them_.

Gendry paused on the stairs before letting out a heavy sigh. Just another thing between them, a wedge, a secret, a memory of a woman in the shadows. He went back downstairs slowly, gingerly removing the flash drive from his computer, shutting it down, and returning the drive to its hiding place – in a sock roll, under their bed, behind his ratty sweatshirts from his university days.

He slipped back into bed and lay on his back besides Arya, slipping an arm behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling, unsure if - when all the pieces have fallen down and consequences have been meted out – Arya will ever forgive him this secret. He’s not even sure she will forgive him this distance between them.

He’s not sure she’s ever been able to forgive him for being there when her father dad, when she couldn’t. When he couldn’t save him, when there was nothing he could do. Maybe that is the barricade between them, maybe it is just the final brick sealing the wall – it’s hard to tell.

The imprint of one last document is bold against the backs of his eyelashes as he drifts off to sleep. It contained only a set of coordinates, a date, and a time. It seemed as though he would see Sansa Stark again. 

That night, his dreams are monochromatic, and the only color is the burnished copper of her hair, tumbling down over her shoulders as she looks up at him, pressing a mint onto her tongue, over and over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading & following along! you can come fangirl with me (currently getting WAY too deep into harry potter - 'tis the season!) over at tumblr: jolie_unfiltrd 
> 
> next chapter (12/14): Arya & Gendry have a discussion, Sansa's engagement party goes smashingly.


	5. Chapter 5

GENDRY

He meant to tell Davos the next Monday morning – even arriving early with a steaming hot coffee (black), so that he could slip into the Captain’s office first thing. But he wasn’t there. The smarmy Captain Jaime Lannister had replaced him for the moment, as Davos was apparently detained in a case that Gendry didn’t know the details of. On the surface, it didn’t seem suspicious – but he had grown used to seeing plots and loose threads everywhere; pull one, the lions come tumbling out. Pull another, the roses. He trusted the Lannisters as far as he could throw them, and even then, not half as much. So he kept his mouth shut.

It turned out there are more pressing matters.

Sam called over the weekend while Arya was at kickboxing, saying that they really needed Arya’s help with Gilly’s new baby that was due any day now, and there was a lovely bookshop in town that Bran would just adore, and really, Rickon hadn’t been North in forever, wouldn’t now be a perfect time to visit?

Gendry paled as Sam keeps talking, the words ringing in his ears like a long-forgotten song: _not safe, not safe, not safe_. It was implicit that Gendry wouldn’t be joining them. That Gendry had work to do. He relayed the message to Arya when she got home – in quiet words and half-assumptions, letting her fill in the gaps.

She understands, perhaps more than anyone, why she and Bran and Rickon had to leave, but couldn’t understand why Gendry had to stay behind in this golden city of shit. Arya had wanted to go after Jon for months, basically since the day he left, and now that she finally had the go-ahead to do so? Now that she knew she was running to someone, and not just away? She was halfway packed before he even finishes telling her about the phone call.

But he didn’t move – just standing there, hands shoved deep in his pockets, brow furrowed as he watches her. She went to the closet and hauled out his old duffel bag, beginning to open his drawers and throw things in. His boxers, a few old T-shirts, a pair of mismatched socks.

“Arya,” he said quietly, placing a hand over the bag. He’s almost afraid to touch her, when she’s like this – brittle and too strong and angrier than a scorpion all riled up. He could see the cracks in her façade, the jitter in her fingertips, the bouncing on the tips of her toes. 

“What?” she demanded, head snapping up impatiently. This is a tension that he knew all too well, a pattern he recognized. There would be a build-up, a crescendo with adrenaline pumping on both sides, and a fight – vicious and blood thirsty on both sides – until they fell together, mouths frantic as they tried to soothe the hurt of words with lips. In the end, he’d generally go along with what she wanted. It had worked for them, for a while.

He consciously lowered his voice, sinking down onto the bed next to her half-packed duffel, hands open in supplication across his knees. To what god, he’s not sure. Perhaps just to Arya. “I’m not going, I’m sorry.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“I can’t leave yet, there’s a case-“

Arya’s eyes rolled dramatically, and her mouth tightened before she surprised him in a way he hadn’t thought she could, not after they’d known each other for so long: she started to cry. Big, fat tears well up in her doe-brown eyes and roll down her cheeks. Arya looked as bewildered as he feels, but tries to force the words out anyway, ignoring the betrayal of her face to the workings of her heart.

“There’s always a case, Gendry.” _I wanted to leave this place years ago_. The accusation was implicit in the silence between them.

“This case is your dad’s, and Jon’s.” Her lips pressed together, turning white at the edges, and he shook his head, letting the words tumble from his mouth before she can implode or explode or rain down fire on his head. “It’s _not_ a cold case, and it’s not about Robb. It’s about the Lannisters, and your dad was on the edge of bringing them down.”

Gendry can tell, before he even finishes the sentence, that she doesn’t believe him. More, that she doesn’t believe that this case would solve anything – not when any of the years of work her dad had done hadn’t changed a thing, and from her perspective, it only got worse and worse for the Starks. So, he gets it; but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sting. Arya breathed in deep, exhaled sharply through her teeth, and turned back to her dresser, shoulders still even as she is poised to open up her drawers.

“How long until it’s over?”

Gendry shrugged helplessly, unable to avoid the gesture even as he knows she cannot see him. “I don’t know.”

She pulled open a drawer, sharply, then dropped her forehead down in defeat. This conversation is echoes of thousands of similar conversations – of his work keeping them in this city, of the belief in people to do good, to be good, of not knowing when he’d come home, or when things would be finished up. It’s the nature of the work, toiling away in the belly of the beast, but it hadn’t made it easier for them. For her.

“I won’t wait for you, Gendry.”

He swallows around the knot in his throat.

“I know,” he chokes out. And he had known. Had seen this coming from a mile away and still, still, it feels worse than he expected, like a bruise just beginning to form

Her hands fluttered to the next drawer, delicate as birds.

“I’m sorry,” he offers. If she asked him what for, he would say: _everything, nothing, all the things in-between. Who we could have been, in a different world. Who we became, here. _

She nodded slowly. She still refused to look at him. “I know.”

He helped her pack up everything from the apartment, a silent testament to who they were. He left the picture frame from her graduation buried in his closet, for reasons that he didn’t care to examine too closely.

The next morning, Gendry shouldered her duffels, picked up the box of all of the things that wouldn’t fit in the dufffels, and strode from the front door in the early dawn, depositing the pieces of her life in the back of Rickon’s waiting car, scuffed up but a good model. It would take them all the way up North.

He moved to kiss her cheek, then stopped himself. She wrapped her arms around his waist, briefly, more gently than she’d ever touched him before, and pressed her lips softly to the side of his cheek. It is that softness that threatens to break him, more than anything, but he blinks away the feeling rapidly as she darts into the car. The three remaining Stark children wave goodbye, somber but with an air of hope that they hadn’t felt for years.

The only sound as they waved goodbye was the tinny sound of the television from the front room, announcing Sansa Stark’s engagement to Joffrey Baratheon.

\---

SANSA

She supposed it would be too much to ask for at her engagement party for her own fiancé to pay attention to her and only her, rather than the rather fit Margaery Tyrell prancing around as if she already owns the place.

She resisted the urge to drape the woman in her jewels, wrap a bow around her head and leave her to the lions as a goodbye present. Maybe later, she mused as she swirled the wine in her glass, watching as Joffrey leaned in to whisper in her former friend’s ear, as he smirked when she laughed. All the while, a beatific smile remained plastered on Sansa’s face, her eyes bright and empty.

Sansa had been stupid once, had wanted all of his attention – but that had been years ago, before Petyr, before everything. Playing the part now came easily, even as it made her skin crawl, the skin at the back of her neck prickle, for she knew the price she could pay if she were to falter, to hesitate, to give up the ghost.

It was better if Cersei assumed her to be an empty-headed fool, besotted by pretty things and sparkly jewels and the promise of living in the lap of luxury, without a day of hard work to dirty her hands or muss her silken hair.

Sansa had the good fortune of avoiding the golden-haired matriarch of the Lannisters until later in the evening, when her razor-sharp wits were slightly dulled with vast quantities of wine, nearly running into her in the restroom.

“Oh, little dove,” she cooed, coming towards her on slightly unsteady ankles, smoothing a hand over the crown of her head as if she were a little girl, and not a woman of her height. “Are you enjoying your little soiree?”

A bright smile spread across Sansa’s face so organically she wondered if she’d ever recognize a true emotion again, if she’d ever be able to just feel, to just be. “Very much,” she said sweetly, “it was so kind of you to arrange it for Joffrey and I.”

She had known Cersei long enough to know that the glint in her eyes meant she was going to be malicious, cruel, for the fun of it; Sansa suspected she had been the type of little girl to step on baby birds fallen from their nests with her pristine mary-janes.

“Joffrey seems to be paying quite a lot of attention to Margaery Tyrell,” Cersei said, the words dropping from her lips as if anchors meant to weigh down the younger woman’s heart with heaviness. More the fool she, Sansa thought, for she had learned to waltz with anchors tied to her ankles, to swim with a heart meant for drowning. Had attended her own father’s funeral with the people she suspected had orchestrated the entire affair. “She looks rather lovely this evening, don’t you think?”

“I _do_ think,” she nodded seriously, before giggling with her co-conspirator, a blush neatly staining her cheeks. It was easy to pretend that the wine had gotten into her bloodstream as well, and she swayed lightly as she pretending to examine her hair in the mirror. (Margaery’s gown _was_ lovely, she had to admit, even if the amount of skin it showed would likely be copied by the nearby brothels within the week, where it would be far more appropriate).

Cersei seemed annoyed, more than usual, that she hadn’t hurt the young girl. She prodded once more. “Joffrey doesn’t seem to mind the cut.”

“Perhaps she could give me a recommendation for a seamstress?” Sansa mused as she draped her braid just so over her shoulder. Cersei smiled tightly at her – but Sansa kept talking, letting her voice warble just the slightest bit. “I think I could wear something similar, if only I could wear short sleeves…” 

The smile became brittle before nearly falling off of her face completely – but Sansa kept chattering.

“Oh, but seeing you reminds me, I haven’t seen Uncle Jaime recently? I was hoping he’d be here to congratulate us tonight!” Jaime had a strange mixture of adoration and repulsion for the son that everyone claimed to know as his nephew, but she knew better. And she also knew that he was influential in the police force, and if Jon was North, she would bet that Jaime was up there as well, trying to quash any rebellion that Jon would incite just by being there.

A scowl of anger swept over Cersei’s face, just for a moment, before she turned around to fluff her hair in the mirror, twining her curls around her fingers carefully and letting them lay against her shoulders. “I’m afraid he’s away on business, little dove. You’ll have to hear his congratulations another time.”

Sansa let herself sigh, and carefully adjust her dress in the mirror before bidding her future mother-in-law a good night and gliding back out into the fray, careful that her gown didn’t catch in any of the tiles on the way out. Careful not to let her face show a hint of triumph; there would be time for that, later.

The night Tywin had died, surrounded by loved ones in the hospital after a horrible illness, she had allowed herself one, bright, joyous smile in the fluorescent lighting of the hospital. Closer, and closer still. Tumble Tywin, and Cersei would be even more desperate to prove herself. Jaime would withdraw. She had come to know them so well that targeting their weaknesses, even if she was unable to do anything about them, was second nature.

Not even ten steps out into the ballroom, she slammed straight into Sandor Clegane, all rough stubble and broad shoulders and a mean sneer, permanently engraved on his scarred face. She teetered on her heels and would have fallen backwards had he not caught her by the waist and hauled her back upright, standing chest to chest with her. The shriek was quelled in her throat as she looked up at his face, sneer firmly in place but eyes soft, apologetic, regretful.

“Sansa!” she heard Joffrey yell from not ten feet away. “Are you alright, my love? Did that oaf hurt you?” He strode closer and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her roughly into his side. It seemed that everyone at the party had had a bit too much to drink at this point, and Joffrey was certainly no exception.

“I’m fine, darling, thank you,” she simpered into him, keeping the smile on her face even as he shook off her hand from his face. She had been honestly surprised when he proposed – that part had been no act – because she had thought that he tired of her a year ago and was just waiting for some other girl to present a better offer. She had been hoping that Margaery would be that girl, but alas, no. Or at least, not yet. Sansa had just a few more pieces of information to seal the deal, and then she could escape into the countryside and never look back.

Instead, here she was, at this idiotic soiree, clutching onto Joffrey like a lifeline, knowing all the while that the look in his eyes meant he thirsted for blood. That she would pay for the way Clegane touched her, that he would claim she somehow manufactured the entire ordeal. He would bruise her arms or waist, would try to make her cry, and then hike up her gown if he wasn’t too drunk to perform. 

Sansa had learned to use that time to plan, to separate the part of her brain that could still reason into her future, into whatever existence she could maneuver for herself, for her family. Sansa had big plans, in particular, for taking back the Winterfell estate from the Boltons.

The Lannisters, the Tyrells, the Boltons – she had almost enough evidence to take down the ring of corruption from the inside-out, but she needed a little more time. There were just a few more weeks until her next meeting with Gendry. Davos should have been informed, the ball should have started rolling down the hill by now.

Joffrey would finish with a stunted groan into the back of her neck and collapse beside her, narrow chest heaving and vicious eyes closed to the world. She would wait until he was asleep, slip back into her gown, glide through the shadows back to her own chambers, and bolt the door twice.

She was prepared, always had been, so it should be noted that Sansa also had meticulous plans for the bullet in her vanity, hidden carefully away amongst her embroidery, the shape of a thimble. She had been a good shot, once.

And she only needed one good shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter (12/29): Sansa & Gendry meet a second time, Jon thinks about his motivations, and Cersei considers the little dove in her nest.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! uploading today because my schedule over the next few weeks is fairly unpredictable.   
happy holiday season!

SANSA

The second time they met, it was nearly springtime. A different night, a different balcony, a different party – the same sense of tired adrenaline pumping through her veins as she lingered in the shadows, waiting for the outline of his broad shoulders to appear. She fidgeted with the ends of her sleeves, pulling them down to cover the rewards of last night. Mr. Dontos, the drunken fool, had stumbled into her, clutching at her auburn braid and babbling nonsense about the Northern princess. She had shoved him away, but Joffrey’s ears had already caught their conversation. He had felt the need to remind her – as if she could forget – to whom she really, truly belonged.

_Herself, the North, herself. _

The cadence echoed in her head with every thrust of his narrow hips against her own. It had been years since she had felt fully present, fully aware of Joffrey’s presence, but that night, a rage sparked through her veins and she curled her hands into fists under the pillows.

This was all taking far longer than she’d ever thought it would. There was too much depending on other people, on pieces to fall into place, too much counting on people’s predictability. She twisted the ring on her finger around and around, slightly too big on her narrow fingers, until Gendry stepped out onto the balcony, phone raised to his ear, as if on a call, before closing the doors and pocketing the phone.

Sansa took a moment – a voyeuristic, selfish moment – to admire the cut of this man in his suit, the dark drape of his too long hair across his forehead, the way his black suit clung to his shoulders, his legs. The elegance of his profile, almost Grecian, as he leaned onto the balcony, staring up into the sky, admiring whatever stars could be seen within city limits.

She had looked, had counted them all.

This man did not belong to her; he could be her salvation, he was the only one she dared trust. It was a disconcerting feeling.

Sansa stepped out from her spot behind the marble column, heels clicking against the tiled floor as she glided towards him. A thrill danced up her spine at the way he turned immediately, as if electrified.

It had been years since she had felt a tendril of true desire, and months now since their hands had touched and she had felt them burning burning burning for days afterward. She swallowed heavily as she sauntered towards him – pace steady, gaze steady, but heart hammering in her chest as though it was trying to break free.

She knew nothing about this man, but she wanted to drag him back into the shadowy crevices of this balcony, lift her skirts and –

“You’re late,” she said, instead, voice steady, eyes narrowed. She had been molded here, under Cersei. No adolescent fantasies were permitted to her, no matter how tempting, in the moment.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and she hated that she believed him immediately, without question. “I had a good reason.” He pulled a cigarette pack from his coat pocket, offering one to her with a casual, relaxed air. It was as if they weren’t committing treason, as if she wasn’t who she was, as if he hadn’t been aiding her all these months. She didn’t understand it, didn’t understand him, and it put her on edge. She lifted the cigarette to her mouth, and leaned forward as he lit a match, refusing to meet his eyes as she inhaled, altogether too close to this man that she hardly knew.

“How is everyone?” Sansa murmured as she exhaled into the night air. The cigarette smoke barely masked the sugar-sweet smell emanating from the gardens just underneath them. She slid a second flash drive across the marble to him, noting that he pocketed it casually within the case of cigarettes.

“Safe,” Gendry shrugged, and that was enough for her – but she didn’t miss the added comment, just under his breath. As if he was halfway hoping she’d hear, halfway hoping she wouldn’t. “Arya left me a few months ago. She went North with your brothers.”

Sansa ignored the traitorous thump in her chest, instead taking a long inhale from the cigarette, refusing to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope she had a good reason.” It was the closest she’d come to admitting his worth, something she couldn’t do even to herself, in the quiet, lathered up in bubbles to wipe another man’s hands from her body.

“She lets things go,” he said, finally. “I can’t.” It is clear he does not mean things like dishes or laundry or whatever mundane things couples normally fight about, but Things like Robb’s death, Ned’s death… all of the mysteries in their life that just didn’t quite add up.

She turned towards him, finding something sympathetic in his eyes, grateful for the mask of the shadows that hid them from prying eyes. For all that he is basically a stranger, she understands that stubborn hold of the past, wanting to pry things open to see why they ticked, what consequences led to death. She was so close she could feel the heat of his body, smell the musk of him, nearly taste the sweat.

Of course, closeness had its consequences.

Her hand lifted the cigarette back to her mouth – and a slip of the wrist gave him a good look at the bruises that encircled the narrow bones, looking altogether too much like fingerprints. 

Gendry’s face steadied into a sort of deadly calm, blue eyes blazing and jaw set into a hard line. “How long?”

It was a simple question, but it was a question no one had ever asked her. No one looked close enough. Except for Cersei, who would sooner encourage it than do anything to call of her precious beast of a boy. Sansa was almost uncertain how to answer.

“Not that long,” she shrugged, all casual and cool and her hands shook as she raised the cigarette to her mouth once more.

“How bad?”

“Not that bad.” _Lies, lies, lies_. The burning in his eyes revealed he saw through them before they even left her mouth, before they lingered in the air between them.

Gendry swore softly, hands clenched into fists, staring up at the sky, before turning to her, stepping close enough that his murmurs would reach her ears, close enough that she had to look up to meet his eyes. His gaze was considering, calculating, enough to remind her that he was the best detective in the city, despite all of the barriers in his way.

“If I had a way, would you leave tonight?”

The laugh that erupted from her throat was bitter and rough, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes, afraid of what he would see there: a woman who could have left, but stays, over and over again. “I’ve known a way to leave for years.” She felt a coward, for staying. She felt brave.

Most nights, now, she felt nothing at all.

He did not touch her, she did not want him to; she leaned into the heat of him without thinking. She consciously, carefully, leaned back – eyes flickering up to meet his gaze before flitting away, unable to bear what she saw there: compassion, foremost. Fury, on her behalf. 

They stood in silence for a moment, before he replied, voice tight with forced levity. “Secret passageways, huh? Always knew those Targaryens were batty.”

She snorted, despite herself. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“No?” he says, leaning onto his elbows in front of her. “Tell me about them.”

Sansa’s eyes cut to the balcony doors, clinched closed, as she noted their position – tucked into a corner in the shadows. No one would look for her at this hour, and Margaery was thrilling her grandmother by entertaining Joffrey. Cersei would be too drunk to even remember seeing her at dinner. Any other night, at this late hour, she would be alone, tucked up into her bedroom – loading and unloading the gun in a secret drawer if she couldn’t sleep, wondering if she’d ever get the chance.

Wondering if she’d make it that long.

So she turned to face the stars, resting her elbows on the balcony – carefully pressing against the warmth of his arm through the suit jacket – and tells him tales until the moon is high in the sky.

Until she has forgotten about the bruises, about the loneliness, about anything but Gendry and the slope of his lips as he smiles at her, like he knows he shouldn’t but can’t help himself. Until she peels herself from his side and back through the shadowy hallways, and into her room, a lightness in her heart she hasn’t felt in years.

\---

JON

They moved south under the cover of night, gathering more and more people as they went – rough of clothes, hair tied back to mimic his own, dark gear and glinting weapons. The band of rebels, of revolutionaries, steadily grew.

Jon hated it, but he came to be grateful for the help of Jaime Lannister. He still hated him, those golden locks and sparkling eyes and golden hand, but he couldn’t ignore the way the man would look at Brienne. Couldn’t ignore the tips he received from a man who knew the territory and its people like the back of his hand. Couldn’t ignore the way they passed smoothly through the territories, the way they were obtain to obtain supplies, allies, informants. It had started as running away, and turned into running towards his destiny.

He still didn’t want to be a leader, but his name had gifted him a truth, and a power. Allies – a new family.

It was enough to complete the mission he should have been working his entire life: protect Sansa, save her, keep her safe. He had failed, over and over again – then willingly left her in the clutches of the lions.

He had suspected, from the beginning, that there was more going on in her pretty head than what she let on – but then Petyr Baelish had died, Ned had died, Twyin had died. It had been a busy few years, filled with the deaths of powerful men in various ways at various times. They had always pinned it on some group, or some other traitor to the crown – but Jon knew that the police force had been baffled by their deaths.

Jon had been baffled, but then…

Jon had seen the steel in her spine at her father’s funeral, the glint in her eyes as she dabbed at tears with a handkerchief and Joffrey had tucked her under his arm. Their gaze had met – Tully blue and Stark grey, glinting with violet – and he had been shocked by the softness there, the sorrow. The vengeful flicker of flames at the corner of her eyes as she turned away.

He did not say anything, and he would hate himself for that for the rest of his life. For the way he turned away from her, the curl of his lip as he watched Joffrey tuck her into his side.

He left her in King’s Landing, and he would try to make that up to her for as long as he drew breath.

They moved towards the Red Keep, making plans and scheming and hoping and wishing and all he could think of was her. Red hair, searing eyes, the feel of her in his arms – juniper and honeysuckle and something bitter that he could never place. Heartbreak, maybe. Loneliness, perhaps.

If he knew her, and if she wanted him, he would make sure she would never be lonely, not ever again.

\---

CERSEI

There was something about that damned little bird. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she was so fucking _tired_ of waiting around for Varys’ little spies to figure it out. So one night, in early summer, she summoned Sansa Stark to her private chambers.

The simpering chit came in, shoulders bowed, tucking her hair nervously behind her ear on repeat, as if it was a tic, though it couldn’t disguise the height of her, the grace, the beauty. When Joff had initially set his eyes on her, Cersei had done her very best to persuade him away from the Stark girl. But he insisted, and she had always had a mother’s weakness for his demands, his desires, and so Sansa had been enveloped into their lives at court.

A year ago, she had given Joff the blessing to propose, though she had seen his eyes wandering to the Tyrell girl, the seductive drape of her gown, the honey-gold ringlets and amber eyes. Cersei had thought she hated Sansa, but gods, Margaery was worse. Besides, she had been trapped in a loveless, terrible marriage for many years until his convenient death, why would Sansa not have to suffer the same fate?

Perhaps the gods would smile upon her and bless them with children, and perhaps Joff would soften and learn to love them, once he knew what it was like to be a parent, to have your heart beating outside your body in something tiny and beautiful and helpless.

Or perhaps Sansa would have conceived those children through other means, other men, and Cersei would have the pleasure of observing her imprisonment. It was all the same to her, really, now that the Stark house was all but disappeared.

They were no threat.

And this cowed woman in front of her, wrists covered in bruises that the longest sleeves barely disguised, the diamond glinting on her left hand a reminder of to whom she belonged – Cersei snickered at the thought of this woman, a threat to her rule.

She had seen a psychic years ago, and the old woman had clearly been mad.

Cersei questioned her casually, watching the girl’s brows furrow in confusion, watching the vacant look on her face puzzle over the answers as if she were afraid she might have displeased her future mother-in-law. She dismissed her after half an hour.

(Cersei missed the glint in Sansa’s eyes, the curl of her fingers underneath the table, as if tightening a noose ever so slowly).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: their third & final balcony meeting. an insurrection. an attempted escape.


	7. Chapter 7

SANSA

The third time they met, the final time, lightning and thunder dueled in the sky like warring gods, going for each other’s throats again and again. It was no gala this time, but an invasion. No party at the palace, but a coup of a rebellion. Those gathered in glimmering gowns and glittering jewels and dark suits drank glass after glass of champagne, oblivious to the storm brewing outside.

There was no information to be exchanged, not this night, only the beginning of the end. A match to light a flame, or the end of brewing embers, depending on where you stood.

Sansa stepped out onto the balcony much earlier in the party than she would have dared, any other night. She stood under the stars, eyes fixed on the brewing storm, appearing for all the world an indolent princess. Her shoulders stiffened when Gendry strode out alongside her, standing just a few feet away. Casually, like they had all the time in the world, she turned her head and looked at this man, this friend, this stranger. 

A rough grin formed at the edge of his mouth, before he turned away, forcefully, as if it took more effort than he anticipated. “The gardens seem… nice, tonight,” he said and it nearly jarred her out of her façade of sneering boredom. After a casual glance behind him he leaned closer, grazing her shaking hand with his own. “Would probably be especially nice around 11 o’clock.”

She raised a brow at him – imperious, questioning – but his only response is a slight nod, and a slight motion to the waistline of his jacket; she could just barely see the outline of the gun he had hidden there.

It took _effort_ to keep her knees locked, to remain upright as she realized: they are coming, Jon is coming, it is almost _over_. The relief nearly bows her over, but it’s not done yet. It’s half-past-nine, and still, so much could go wrong. Sansa twisted her engagement ring round and around on her narrow fingers, staring out into the night, at the horizon, as if she’d see him, as if Jon might be standing there.

Her gaze cut to the side as she wondered if Arya will be there. Rickon, Bran – she is fairly sure they will stay North, where they are safest, but Arya? She has run headlong into danger from the moment she was born. A silly thing like potential death wouldn’t keep her away, not for all the promises of safety in the world.

Sansa wanted, once, to be like her brave and fearless sister. To embrace danger with open arms, to embrace it, to learn to defeat it. But she had spent years pursuing rotten hearts and crawling hands in this town, pursuing Petyr, Tywin, Cersei and Joffrey. Years living on the edge.

And before that, in her teenage years, youth and indolence and long legs in the sunshine – she had wanted power, a pretty boy on her arm, glittering jewels, for her name to be whispered around the city like a prize, a glimmering secret.

Now, all that Sansa finds that all she wants is a quiet life, a warm bed, peace. 

Her gaze lingered on the slope of his nose, the dark hair falling in his eyes, and carefully did not allow herself to jump when the blue of his eyes – nearly silver in this light – met hers. Sansa was acutely aware of the inches between them, their breaths mingling in the early evening air, as he leaned even closer.

His eyes had traced from her toes to her ankles, skimmed her body up to her collarbone and fixated on her face – and now, _now_ – _gods above_ – his gaze lingered on every inch of her. The silk fabric that twisted around her legs, the criss-crossing of fabric that left much of her waist and back exposed, that dared caress the underside of her breasts, the long, dark sleeves, the maroon gown, lift of her chin and finally, finally, he met her eyes boldly, frankly.

A shiver ran up her spine, even as a thought rang in her head like a clanging bell: this was not a man in love with her sister. This was desire, sharp-edged and delicious and tempting and completely out of reach. Completely out of the question.

Arya had left, Arya would return.

This man was not hers to dream about.

Gendry looked at the glass doors leading back into the party, assessing the degree of shadows they were hidden within on this balcony, before stepping toe-to-toe with her. He reached a cautious hand towards the strands of hair that had fallen loose from her intricate braid, gently brushing them back behind her ear, keeping his gaze locked on her.

“Are you okay?” he murmured.

Her heartbeat echoes in her chest, in her stomach, in the delicate arch of her feet – her every sense is fixated on him. The smell of open air, terrible coffee, the trace of iron, the very pattern of his breathing. He inhaled sharply as she reached her hand out to intertwine her fingertips with his. Soft, teasing touches that ghost over his palm, his fingertips, his knuckles.

“No.” The admission is crisp between them, something she has never been able to admit, even to herself. Then, she looks up at him, unafraid at his closeness, wanting him ever closer, inhaling his scent – like the North and libraries and cigarette smoke. Like home. “But I will be.”

He nodded, softness in his gaze as his thumb traces patterns on the palm of her hand, reading her future, pulling apart her secrets. “I know,” he said. 

His gaze met her own, and a shiver danced down her spine, even as she stepped in towards him, letting her gaze drop to his mouth, unconsciously catching her bottom lip in her teeth.

He was transfixed, and it took heartbeats for his eyes to meet her own once more – his gaze questioning, now. Eager, now. Cautious, hopeful, longing longing longing. Her slight nod is enough permission for Gendry to lean in further, until his brow leans against her own, his nose brushing against hers. He inclined his head and brought his hand to cradle her face and –

He kisses her. He kisses as if they have all the time in the world, as if the world is not about to implode around them. His other hand winds around her waist and pulls her even closer.

In her fantasies, in her idle dreams, she had thought about kissing him. She had thought about soft kisses, sweet and gentle. She had thought about bruising kisses, pressing her back against the wall of the palace. But she hadn’t imagined a kiss like this.

It is all-consuming, it is heated, it is tender.

And in this stolen moment on the balcony, Sansa allowed herself to indulge her whimsical, occasionally filthy, always unbearably lovely daydreams. In these dreams, they are a normal boy, and a normal girl. They go out for ice cream, they stumble back to his apartment, she kisses him shyly on the street, underneath the falling snow, he comes home and presses her against the door of her apartment, kissing down her neck as his hands lift under her thighs and –

A moment longer - a selfish, all too short moment – and she abruptly stepped back, out of his grasp, offered a dazzling smile that did not reach her eyes, and turned back into the fray of the party, chiffon swirling around her legs. 

It was hard to remember, but she must: this man would never be hers.

Arya would never forgive her.

(She might never forgive her, anyway).

\---

GENDRY

An hour later, Gendry stood at his post, just within the perimeter of the room, half-hidden in the darkness as he observed the people, as he sought to keep his eyes from searching for the glint of auburn, the sharp angle of a wrist, the long-sleeved billowing gown meant to entice and distract from the bruises underneath. She had slipped out, just minutes before, determinedly avoiding his gaze.

He wondered if he had overstepped. He had thought – it didn’t matter what he had thought. She had run at the first press of his lips, the broad grin across her lips not quite matching the desolation in her eyes. He wondered what he had said – what he had done…

He wondered if he’d ever have a chance to make it right.

The last few months, the helplessness of waiting had threatened to turn the edges of his sanity. Dark blue-black bruises had haunted his dreams, and the bitter glint in her blue eyes his waking hours. He had meant what he said, that night – he would have gotten her out, somehow, some way, and to hell with the consequences. But Sansa was a woman all too familiar with consequences, with the turns of fate and destiny and how they never seemed to turn in her favor. Gendry wondered when she had last smiled, for true, not the broken porcelain offering she gave out at these galas like gifts to all of her devoted followers.

His eyes traced her slender form when she slipped from the hall, copper hair glinting in the candlelight. _Be safe_, he thought. _It’s almost over_. There was so much that could go wrong – but he was hopeful. Cautiously optimistic. 

Gendry had planned the security for the night’s event, and planted sympathizers from the precinct around the perimeter. When his radio began to sound, he simply turned down the volume, and waited, tugging carefully at the handkerchief tied around his neck to make sure he was ready.

Small canisters of black rolled across the floor amidst the crowds, beeped twice, and opened, emitting a hazy gas that most of the gala attendees hardly noticed, so lost in their conversation. But one by one, the wave of panic spread.

Gendry lifted his handkerchief to his mouth and stood at the ready, as the people started to fall, boneless, to the floor, glasses shattering against the marble. It was quieter than he thought it would be. Or maybe, the din of the party had been such that the sounds of alarm seemed muted. 

One second passed in an eternity. Two, ten, thirty.

When he was certain that they had all fallen, and when he heard footsteps in the entrance hall, he turned back on his radio.

“Long live the Wolf,” he said, quietly, listening as it was repeated back to him.

Jon’s army entered quietly, some staggering along or limping or covered in blood, but with cautiously triumphant grins starting to bloom on their faces. Gendry hadn’t expected Jon’s forces to have amassed such a following, nor that the entire North would follow a man for his name, for his look, for the time he had served with the Wildling ranger battalion in the mountains. He hadn’t expected Jaime Lannister to have joined them, smug in his place next to Brienne, smirking over her shoulder whenever she wasn’t looking.

The people behind them spread out quickly, tying the nobles together who would be tried for their crimes, binding their wrists and ankles together with rope, clearing up the shattered glass and patching any injuries while they could. Jon intended for this to be a smooth transition, despite all this fanfare in the beginning.

He should have expected Arya to be standing at the man’s right, that steady grey gaze fixed on him with raised brows and wide eyes. But some part of him had been sure that she’d get on a boat and sail away, sail to explore new lands and other cultures and come back in ten years with some wild tale of her time away.

And in the meantime, Gendry had thought he might heal. Might love again.

He felt transparent under her gaze, as if Arya could sense the wrongness in his veins, that his heart had stayed steady as it saw her once more. Jon and Arya strode towards him, where he stood amongst the chaos, and there they stood, in a quiet semi-circle.

Twin gazes stared at him, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

“Your Grace,” Gendry said, inclining his head as he spoke through the handkerchief, eyes friendly but wary.

“Gendry,” Jon replied. “It’s good to see you.”

Gendry offered a tight smile; he would not relax, could not relax, not yet.

“Where is she?” Jon asked. Arya looked sharply at her cousin, as if seeing him for the first time, or noticing the timbre in his voice, that cadence that rang only for her.

“In the gardens,” Gendry started, eyes drifting to the royals in the corner, tied together. There was something off, something that was bothering him. He counted golden heads and came up short.

Joffrey was missing.

Gendry’s blood ran cold. He turned on his heel and started to run, ignoring the shouts of Jon and Arya from behind him. 

\---

SANSA

It was, to be honest, a really fucking chilly night to be out in the gardens at this hour. Her silk dress did nothing to preserve any warmth, and by the time she had wandered her way through the maze and into the greenhouse, barefoot in the grass and enjoying every freedom, she half-thought that she would never be warm again.

She had thought the greenhouse might have retained some heat, but what little existed did nothing to soothe the prickling of her flesh, the shivers running up and down her spine.

It was tempting to try to stay close to the palace, to watch Jon storm the place, but for all that she was eager to see the ramifications of everything she had been working for these last years, she was unarmed, she was believed to be loyal to the Lannisters, and she’d rather not take her chances there, thank you very much. She did not survive all these years only to die from an overeager Northern rebel who saw her pretty face and thought: _cunt._

Sansa much preferred Cersei’s terms for her, ever colorful as they were. _Stark girl. Wolf bitch. _Anything that reminded her of her purpose, of the people she was working to protect – her heart would thrum in her chest even as tears would have gathered in her eyes. Fake, for the most part. Even Cersei had never known how deep her well of hatred had run, but she intended to show her. Intended to testify during her trial, during Joffrey’s trial, even during Tyrion’s. The idea of it, the dream of it, had kept her going these last few months when she seemed to brittle to survive a spring rainstorm, let alone a siege, a coup d’état, Joffrey’s brutal hands.

Such stark contrast to Gendry’s soft touches from just a few hours before. Wrenching herself away from his touch was… she couldn’t verbalize it, couldn’t even think about it, about what it felt like, what it meant, what it all could mean.

Because it didn’t mean anything.

Arya would come back, or he would go North to join her – and Sansa would be alone, forever, just like she’d hoped.

No man would ever touch her again, just like she’d dreamed.

Sansa swallowed hard as she considered the blooming roses in front of her and tried to will away the tears welling in her eyes. It was stupid – _so _stupid – to cry over this man she hardly knew, this man that she wanted to know intimately. Her fingers rubbed over each other in a cheap mimicry of his touch, and her hand lifted to her cheek as if to savor the brand of his touch, still burning burning burning, hours later.

It had been too easy to avoid his gaze for the duration of the party. Too easy to slip away and know that she may never speak to him again, never stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the wake of a storm, never feel his touch linger against her skin.

Never feel his kiss again…

Never have to face him after she ran from him – though she had good reason - 

The door closed. The lock clicked into place with an ominous thud.

Sansa, instinctually, dropped to her knees and slipped under the nearest table, hand over her mouth, as a voice echoed in the greenhouse. “Sansa, darling,” Joffrey drawled as his footsteps sounded on the tile of the extravagant building – larger than any greenhouse has any right to be. “I know you’re in here.” An odd slithering sound followed him, as if a snake made of iron followed in his path.

His nasally voice echoed in her ears, even as he sauntered casually towards her hiding spot. She does not move, cannot breathe as he said, “I saw you talking with that detective, you know, the same one you’ve been meeting with for months? Mother thought you were just a stupid girl, but I knew better.”

Joffrey’s cruel laugh sounded off the walls. “You think you have so many secrets, but I’ve figured them all out, Sansa Stark.” The emphasis he puts on her last name is chilling. Even more so, she can see the legs of her ill-begotten fiancé through the next few aisle, and can finally identify the metallic sound.

He had brought his father’s greatsword.

Sansa’s eyes darted towards the exit, even as she mentally catalogued the number of weapons currently on her person: zero. Her hands clenched into fists as she thinks, thinks, _thinks_, grateful that she had long-ago slipped off the stilettos in favor of bare feet in the grass.

“I wonder if your family will even be pretend to weep at your funeral, Sansa Stark. You’ve betrayed them over and over again.” He laughed again, dark and eerie in the moonlight. “At least you were good for one thing over the last few years, but I’m not interested in fucking a wolf to keep my mother happy any longer.”

Joffrey turned the corner and raised his sword, only to find emptiness where he expected to find a willowy redhead, covered in bruises. A delighted laugh rolled from his lips. “Oh, you want to play, do you?” He continued his stroll around the greenhouse, footsteps the only noise in the building.

Not even a woman’s frantic breathing, muffled through the silk of her dress, wedged behind bags of soil, cursing herself for her lack of courage. She kept picturing the heavy steel tearing through her flesh as easily as the silk, kept imagining his laughter as she was cut into pieces – and no one would know, no one would look for her.

Gendry might – She shook herself out of it. Gendry _might_ be helping to orchestrate a rebellion in a heavily guarded palace.

Sansa forced herself to face the facts: no one was coming to rescue her.

As always, she would have to save herself.

\---

GENDRY

Running through the gardens, Gendry wished he had been a _fucking_ better detective and set up a rendezvous point with Sansa. His intention had been to keep her safe, to allow her to keep her distance from the chaos of this evening, to let her avoid the gazes of her cousin and her sister, just for a little moment longer.

It was selfish and it was stupid of him. He had been trying to keep her in a box, to tuck her away and keep two halves of his life from colliding, and for what? So Joffrey could hunt her down in the garden with no one the wiser as to all that she had done? All that she had risked, all that they had won, because of her?

His fury coursed through him like a living drumbeat. _Find her, find her, find her. _

A pair of shoes, discarded by a bench, caught his eye, and he swerved towards that path, knowing that it led to the center of the maze, to the greenhouse, the glass gardens. The home of the winter roses.

Gendry slowed his pace as he approached, noticing the second set of footsteps in the dewy grass, the sharp line in the grass as if someone had dragged a sword –

The thought stopped him short. A sword. Gendry swore softly under his breath, moving faster towards the greenhouse. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: Gendry finds Sansa, and Joffrey finds them both. A reunion in the gardens.


	8. Chapter 8

SANSA

“Oh, darling,” Joffrey drawled as he approached her hiding place and her hands frantically searched in the darkness behind the bench for something, _anything_, to use to defend herself. “You might as well come out. You know I’ll find you, eventually.”

He laughed, cruel and high-pitched and for all that she had spent years – _years _ \- blocking him out, blocking every aspect of him from her heart, it took everything in her to muffle the sobs threatening to erupt form her throat.

She was so _close, _dammit. And now –

Sansa forced herself to focus, to pay attention.

For there was another set of footsteps, quietly approaching, undetected by Joffrey as he continued to taunt her, mercilessly. “I can see your footprints, Sansa,” he said, voice a sing-song and eyes glittering in the darkness. “I’m losing my patience with this game, won’t you come out?”

The metal tip of the sword glinted in the moonlight as he sauntered towards her, arms raised as if ready to strike. Whoever else was in the greenhouse – was he friend or foe? He hadn’t spoken to Joffrey yet, but that didn’t mean he would save her, or help her. She shook her head, and decided she would crawl along the wall of benches to try to make it to the door, then sprint like hell towards the palace.

It would be worth the confusion if she found a Northman, a rebel, if she found _Jon_ –

But first, she had to make it to the doors.

Sansa took a deep breath and started to edge her way to the next table. She made it three tables across – halfway down the length of the greenhouse wall – before her shoulder knocked into a table leg. The soft thump seemed to echo in the quiet room. Bile rose in the back of her throat as Joffrey yelled triumphantly, before diving under the table and grabbing a hold of her leg to drag her out.

Her hands scrambled for purchase on the cement floor, finding dirt instead of anchors. She wasn’t able to stop the tears running down her cheeks. She had danced on the edge of his abuses for months, for years, aware that he was held on a leash. No longer.

Sansa glanced over her shoulder at the blond man with his hands wrapped firmly around her ankle, cringing at the manic look in his eyes, struggling to get away.

“It’s a shame,” he said, gritting his teeth as he yanked her backwards and placed a foot on her ankle. Sansa winced at the crack, the sudden pain coursing through her ankle, the prospect of escape dwindling even further. “I liked this dress.” Joffrey lifted the sword in his other hand and swung towards her.

But the sword did not come close to her.

The edges of the blade met Gendry’s hands, outstretched to stop the downward arc, face lit up in molten fury. Joffrey’s eyes narrowed and he tried to pull the sword back, but Gendry wrapped his fingers around the blade, yanking it towards him and away from the former prince.

A spray of blood hit her legs, her dress, her face, as he tossed the sword into the next aisle. Joffrey roared in frustration, stepping backwards and off of her ankle. Sansa took the opportunity, and immediately scrambled to her feet, limping towards the door, even as she watched the blood soaking Gendry’s hands, held tightly in fists, as if he could staunch the blood flow by sheer willpower alone.

At this rate, he’d go into shock before they made it halfway to the palace.

She bit her lip and said nothing, all too aware of Joffrey’s presence behind them, footsteps pounding in an angry staccato rhythm. She tried to move as fast as she could, but had never felt more powerless than when Joffrey punched her in the lower back, causing stars to dance in her vision and the world to temporarily go black.

Sansa was faintly aware of Gendry diving to catch her, but tripping over a wayward root – so she landed, sprawled across his broad chest, as his back hit the concrete with a loud thump. His head hit only a moment later with a sickening crack. And still – _still_ – he raised his hands as if to ward off Joffrey’s advances, blood streaming down his hands and onto the silk of her dress.

“Pathetic,” Joffrey sneered behind them. “You couldn’t even hold a weapon.”

Sansa froze, meeting Gendry’s bright-blue gaze. “No,” she murmured, “but I can.” She saw comprehension dawn in his eyes, and he nodded, subtly, just once.

Joffrey raised the sword once more as Gendry mustered his strength and rolled them over, cradling Sansa between his elbows and underneath his body as she reached under his suit jacket, muddy and torn and covered in blood, to wrap her delicate hands around the cold metal underneath. Joffrey was still laughing as she pulled it out, flicked off the safety, and placed her delicate finger on the trigger – as natural as breathing.

It wasn’t the best angle, from around Gendry’s waist, but Sansa wouldn’t complain. Not when she finally had the chance to do what she’d been dreaming about, for years.

One shot, two.

Heart, head.

Two glass panels above shattered with the impact of the bullet.

Joffrey wasn’t laughing anymore.

***

It wasn’t as simple as she thought it might be, to tear the fragile silk of her gown to wrap around Gendry’s hands, to attempt to staunch the slowing pulse of blood from his hands. In the end, she had to dig out some gardening shears and cut through the skirt, shivering all the while.

Sansa considered, distantly, that she might be going into shock as well, but it really wasn’t worth thinking about, not then. Not when Gendry was slouched against a table, breathing shallowly, hands open in supplication. 

Gendry’s eyes had begun to close when she finally finished wrapping up his hands, tying them tightly and apologizing softly, almost under her breath, as he winced. She contemplated leaving him here and going for help, but it might take too long. And the walkie on his shoulder – because for some goddamn reason he didn’t have his cell phone on his person like a reasonable modern human being – _nevermind_ that she didn’t have hers, tucked into a nook of her bedroom somewhere – was out of range. So, she did the only thing she could do.

She hauled him to his feet, slung his arm over her shoulder, and half-walked with them, half-dragged him through the greenhouse, through the maze, through the garden. He was much heavier, much more stocky than she had anticipated. It made for slow going. Sansa stopped at the edge of the garden, gazing up at the palace which was both so close and not close enough, and would have sighed were she not already struggling for breath, not already shivering, not already using all of her energy to get him closest to help.

“Sansa?”

Her eyes opened slowly, to see a ghost walking towards her.

Grey eyes, curls drawn back from his face, and a solemnity to it that spoke of brooding, of melancholy.

Of kingship.

“Jon.” She couldn’t help the smile that played on her lips, tentative as it was. He was _here_, he was alive, and –

Arya appeared from over his shoulder, eyes darting rapidly between Gendry – who was nearly unconscious – and Sansa’s torn gown, the dirt across her face and hands. The blood that covered them both.

Arya snorted, even as she moved to support Sansa, as Jon moved to throw Gendry’s other arm over his shoulder, even as they started to stumble slowly towards the palace. “Nice night for a stroll in the gardens?”

Sansa couldn’t suppress the laugh that tumbled from her lips, the one that built into a cacophony, relieved and joyous and maybe, just a little bit mad. (She was surprised she’d made it this long).

She kept waiting, kept holding on by a thread. 

Sansa waited, at least, until they made it to the palace, until she knew they were safe, until Gendry had been tucked into the medical ward and was being treated by efficient staff, cleaning his wounds and hooking him up for a blood transfusion.

She waited until Jon had confirmed their safety, his succession, and suspiciously did not ask what became of Joffrey.

She waited until Arya had brought her a steaming mug of tea, eyes soft and apologetic and so filled with regret she could hardly look at her sister, hardly examine those gray eyes filled with remorse. 

She waited until the physicians asked about her crooked ankle, swollen and already bruising, until they asked her to walk on it, to gauge the pain.

She waited until two cops approached, handcuffs around her waist, to arrest her for the murder of Joffrey Baratheon.

And then she collapsed, boneless, to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry for the long delay (new puppy! the plague! grad school! aghhhh) & thank you for continuing to follow along <3


	9. Chapter 9

GENDRY

When he woke up, he was lying in a soft bed, his hands wrapped in white gauze, and Arya was staring at him.

Well, Arya was alternating between reading the newspaper and staring at him. But still.

(It used to thrill him, seeing her gaze meet his – across a crowded room, across the dinner table. And now? There’s a dull ache in his chest, a quiet where a roar once existed).

He was in the palace, he could tell that much from the opulent decorations in the room, excess and luxury and a powerful demonstration of wealth through the weight of gold alone. The light streaming in through the windows was low and muted, a springtime afternoon where the chill has not yet left the world, where each afternoon asks you to reach for a jacket, a nearby fireplace, a warm mug of something steaming.

Arya folded the newspaper into crisp thirds, placed it carefully on the bed where he couldn’t see the title or the date, and leaned in. “How are you feeling?” His head ached, and everything seemed hazy, fuzzy. Like he was in a dream-not-dream.

He attempted a shrug, but winced at the movement. “Honestly? Like shit.”

She nodded, as if this didn’t surprise her one bit, and stood, heading for the door. “There’s someone who would like to see you,” she said as she moved, graceful as a willow and more lethal than anyone would ever know. Arya paused at the doorframe, her hand resting lightly on the handle, hesitating, before she rotated to face him, each movement precision-sharp and too casual by half. “It’s good to see you,” she said, quietly, a resigned sadness on her elfish features before she slipped out of the room.

Gendry looked up in surprise when Jon walked into the room, exhausting lining his face. The man nearly collapsed into a chair at his bedside, rubbing his hands with his face, before looking up at his partner.

The man he considered to be his brother, his family.

He wanted to say a thousand things, all at once – I missed you, how are you, where _is she_ – but settled on bowing his head. “King Jon,” he said, a shit-eating grin slowly blooming on his face.

“Oh, piss off,” Jon laughed – and it sounded like the first time he’d laughed all day. “You know I never wanted this.”

“I know,” Gendry shrugged. “It’s why I trust you to do it.”

“It won’t be for long,” Jon said, uncomfortable with the title that had only been his for a day or two – though, rightfully, for much longer. “This sham monarchy will end with me.”

Gendry just nodded. It didn’t surprise him; he hoped it didn’t surprise anyone else.

“How is she?”

Jon leveled his gaze at Gendry, gray eyes calculating. It took a moment for him to answer, on an exhale. “Which one?”

Gendry decidedly did not squirm, did not avert his gaze, did not flush; the answer was easy, he cared about them both. “Both of them.”

Jon nodded, and leaned back in his chair. “Arya is… fine. Bullying me around at every opportunity, whipping the rebels into shape, yelling at Jaime Lannister –“

“Jaime Lannister?” He couldn’t keep the shock from his voice.

“The one and only,” Jon said, ruefully. “I was surprised too. He’s mad about some woman Ser Davos found, and so helped us.”

“I thought he was only mad for Cersei.“

Jon shrugged. “Not anymore, it seems.”

It was a natural transition, to ask about other loves who don’t love any longer. It was hard as hell for Gendry to speak up.

“She left when I said I would stay to work the case,” Gendry offered, his rough voice quiet in the darkened room, throwing a hand out when Jon inevitably stood up, in a fury, ready to march out and defend him to Arya and make her come back and – “but whatever was between us, it had… it had gone, long before that.”

Jon stared at him, hard, before nodding, slowly, once.

The words spilled from his lips before he could consider them. “Where is she?”

It didn’t strike him as odd until after he had said them. Not how is she, but where. As if he had known, instinctively, her state of being – in danger, at odds, so very not good – and wanted to reach out and wrap his hand around her wrist, to draw her close and kiss the scars on her face.

Jon hesitated. “In jail.”

“In jail?!” Gendry leapt up from his seat, bandaged hands reaching for Jon’s shoulders to shake some sense into him. The sudden change in position caused the blood to drain from his head, his vision to blur, and it was far easier than it should have been for Jon to ease him back onto his bed.

“I know,” the smaller man said quietly - his partner, the man he used to trust above all others. “I know.” 

***

SANSA

The jail cell was dark, even in the hazy dusk twilight, and cold. Colder than it had any right to be for the time of year. Her dress was threadbare, and she clutched a tattered, blood stained black jacket around her shoulders. A deep breath was enough to remind her whose jacket it was –

But then she thought of why she was wearing it, and what he had done for her, and why she had needed him to –

And then she thought of the recoil of the handgun, clutching around her unshaky hands.

Then, she would wonder if she was sorry about it at all.

Forgiveness was beyond her realm, anyway.

A heavy, wrought-iron old-fashioned key turned the lock of her cell as a dark, tall man with a vaguely menacing face gestured for her to get up. “Bail’s posted,” he muttered, unhappily, glowering at her. It was easy to walk past him, this beast of a man who knew who she was, and on whose arm she had hung for these last years – she had experience with men like this. Her spine was a vertical line, her neck a slope of pride, her eyes like steel – even as she limped out, barefoot, in a blood-stained gown.

It was a surprise, then, to see Margaery Tyrell, draped in a vivid pink, waiting for her in the lobby, sliding an envelope full of cash across the counter with all the grace of an heiress. Which, of course, she was. It was part of the reason Joffrey had been so fascinated by her – there was more money in oil than roses, nowadays. Lucky, then, that the Tyrells worked in both.

The brunette turned towards her, a light in her eyes as she scanned Sansa up and down in a rapid, calculating assessment (she had never seen the girl without vapid cruelty as her mask – she was actually quite captivating). (Sansa caught herself thinking that she might even want to be friends with her).

“Darling,” Margaery cooed, sweeping a heavy fur coat around Sansa’s shoulders and pecking her cheerfully on both cheeks. “You didn’t think grand-mere and I would leave you to rot in this dreadful place, did you? Not when what you did is splashed across every paper in town.” She swept Sansa out of the building and into a town car waiting patiently outside before she could blink, before she could process the brunette’s words.

“Besides,” Margaery continued as she slid in and crossed her legs, letting her pink dress slide up her leg provocatively. The sharpness had returned to her eyes once more. “We owe you.”

“I – I’m sorry?” Sansa couldn’t help slipping back into the ingenue, the fluttering eyelashes, the innocence – even as her face was covered in constellations of Joffrey’s blood.

“You don’t have to play with me, Sansa, not unless you want to,” Margaery’s wink was outrageous enough that she almost wanted to laugh. “I had no intentions of marrying Joffrey, but I certainly wouldn’t let you marry him either. He was a vicious beast of a man.”

Sansa wrapped herself in the mink coat, breathing in deeply – _roses, what else?_ \- as Margaery continued to chatter, as the town car drove back towards the palace, as the music softly playing in the background nearly lulled her to sleep.

She jolted to attention as the car slowed to a stop, and glanced at the brunette, who was staring at her with sympathy, not pity, in her eyes. Margaery said, softly, hands folded in her lap as if restraining herself from reaching out to touch Sansa’s shoulder.

“I’d like to think we could be friends, you and I.”

Sansa considered the woman, tilting her head to the side, before nodding slowly. “I think we could be.”

***

GENDRY

It was late evening, and he was drifting in the hazy, nebulous place between awake and dreaming, so it was no surprise to him when Sansa Stark opened the door to his room, auburn hair glinting in the soft lighting from the dimmer switch he couldn't quite reach. This was a dream, so of course she was here.

It was only when she started limping that he realized this was not a dream. The mask that she always wore only hardened as she stepped towards him, limping on her good ankle, still wrapped in his bloody jacket, but with a heavy mink draped over her shoulders.

Gendry jumped from the bed, ignoring his aching head as he helped her into the armchair, ignoring the way his vision swam and how he couldn’t guide her with his hands, but only by offering his arm around her waist, supporting her.

She protested, but he shrugged her off, sitting just across from the chair on the bed, resting his hands on his thighs as their knees almost, not quite touched. “It’s the least I could do.”

“You’ve already done so much,” Sansa murmured, pointedly, her gaze fixated on the bandages around his hands, the bandage on his arm where they had given him blood transfusions to keep his body from going into shock. Concern splashed across her face before the facade returned. “What did the doctors say?”

“I’ll heal just fine,” he said. It was not quite the truth, not quite a lie, but he couldn’t recall any of the information they had discussed with him, not when his gaze caught on the tiny, barely healing cuts all over her face, roving over them until he can bring himself to meet her eyes.

“The glass?”

She lifted one shoulder, clasping her hands together. “It shattered.” Her voice quivered, barely, there at the end; he’s not sure he would have noticed it were he not completely, overwhelmingly, fixated on her.

“When you –“

“Shot him? Yes.” The words were clipped, tense, as she rubbed her hands together in her lap, tracing over her empty ring finger compulsively. He wanted to reach out and offer his hands, he wanted to give her room to run.

“Are you okay?”

Her gaze cut away from him, swept down as her eyelashes fluttered, as she blinked rapidly and exhaled through her teeth. He sat in silence, waiting, giving her the space he knew, intuitively, that she needed.

“I thought it would feel…”

“Better?” he offered, but she shook her head before the word finished falling in the inches between them.

“Worse.”

Gendry only nodded, familiar with the feeling. It took a moment before she looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes, bottom lip trembling despite her best efforts.

“I’m afraid I’m like them, now. A wolf who spent too long in the lion’s den. And the worst part about it?” A laugh erupted from her lips, bitter and cold. “I asked for it.”

“You couldn’t have known-“ she was _seventeen_ when she and Joff started dating, he remembered from reading Ned’s case reports. Seventeen.

She laughed again, and there was no joy in it, only a bittersweet triumph. “I did, though. I knew everything about them, but after Petyr…”

Sansa cut herself off immediately, shoulders stiffening in guilt; Gendry attempted to calm his racing brain, unsuccessfully. The Baelish case had been unsolved for years, and had been classified as an accidental overdose though no one knew what of… She would have been fifteen. Gendry shuddered as he began to process the events of her past, filed that tidbit away to think over later, and noticed the way this brash, bold, brave woman had begun to fold into herself, shoulders caving in defeat.

Gendry allowed himself to shift towards her, locking her gaze with his own. “You’re still a wolf.” He said it and he meant it. “And you’re still a good person.”

“I learned a lot from them.”

“You _survived_,” he said, flexing his fingertips unconsciously, trying not to reach out to her, despite what he wanted. “You survived and it’s over and you made this world a safer, better place.”

“It’s over,” she repeated, as if it was the only thing she had heard.

He said it back to her once more, softer, quieter. “It’s over, Sansa.”

Sansa dropped her head into her hands as she started to sob, heavy and wrenching and full of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you ever read something so many times that you're like, i'm not even sure what these words mean anymore? this chapter is like that for me. more family health issues means that i'm trying to decompress with writing but also that i'm not content with anything i write. 
> 
> BUT i'm close to the end of this fic & i'm excited to get to the ending (which was one of the first things i wrote!)
> 
> ANYWAY thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so instead of a mega-long last chapter, it's broken up into two, but no fear, i'm posting them both today!

ARYA

Arya had a complicated relationship with her sister – and that was before the murders and the intrigue and the undercover nonsense that their father had somehow, ridiculously, permitted. She used to love being compared to her father; now, knowing what he allowed Sansa to do, it infuriated her.

(She went to his gravesite and yelled at him, throwing her arms up in the air and bellowing into the sky as if he could hear her, as if he could respond. Whatever. It made her feel better).

Part of the hurt, she was mature enough to admit it, was being left out. Jon, Gendry, Sansa, even Ned – they were all part of a secret circle working to take down their enemies, to get their lands back from the Boltons, to keep safe and earn that safety in a world of intrigue and corruption. And there she was, for all those years, just learning how to punch people.

To be fair, she really liked learning how to punch people – and she was _really_ good at it.

Arya tried to not also be furious with her sister. It was easier in the first few weeks, when she was learning everything. The bruises, Joffrey – gods, she wanted to bring him back to life _just_ to murder him again, slowly, once more, with _feeling_ – the years of isolation, working undercover. Baelish. She was more furious with Ned, then.

Desolation was a powerful tool – losing Catelyn and Robb so quickly, it had broken him. He had never been the same, after that. A shell of a man living a shell of a life in a city that desperately needed him.

She stopped trying so hard to not be furious when she saw the way Gendry looked at her sister, the way he asked about her.

It wasn’t that she was jealous, per se. Or that there was some territory or ownership lingering in the back of her mind.

Sansa had been a stranger to her for years, and she had hardly known what to do with her beautiful, poised older sister even before any of this began. They were trying to start over, to build again, but Arya looked into the blue eyes that reminded her of their mother and felt, immediately, smaller. Lesser.

She knew it wasn’t Sansa’s doing, but her own – so she swallowed her pride, and kept showing up for breakfast. Kept listening to her sister’s stories, kept teaching her self-defense, just in case.

What was between Sansa and Gendry - well, Arya decided, swallowing her fury, that was their business.

***

SANSA

  
What was between Sansa and Gendry was nothing, absolutely nothing.

Sansa wandered the halls of the castle she had spent too much time imprisoned within, exploring the gardens and the library and the kitchens, every nook and cranny she never would have been allowed before. She hefted all the books she could carry back to her room – a new one, with a sky blue ceiling and fresh flowers on the table, each morning – devouring them until the wee hours of the morning. If she didn’t rest, she couldn’t think, couldn’t process. So, she didn’t.

She’d had years of practicing avoiding herself and her feelings – weaknesses, all of them. Avoiding Gendry after breaking down in front of him, after _kissing _him, after stowing his blood-stained jacket into the back of her closet and bringing it out, every now and then, to sling around her shoulders for renewed strength and then to stuff back into the closet, chiding herself for the insanity… that was simple. That was survival.

And Sansa Stark, let it be said, was a goddamn _survivor_.

***

**THREE MONTHS LATER **

JON

It started easily enough. He started inviting her on walks, offering his arm to make up for the slight limp from her ankle, now braced and carefully monitored; Sansa would give lively tours of the palace, explaining secret doorways and old legends and the stairway leading directly from his chambers down into the kitchens. It was easy information, light – for all that it came from her memorization of blueprints in the darkness, in the hours before dawn.

In the firelight, in the stairwell, she almost looked mischievous, like the girl he had once known, years and years ago. She reminded him of the time he and Robb had scared the rest of them half to death, dressed up like ghosts and covered in flour and _oh_ how she had cried, and stamped her feet and pouted. Her laugh was self-deprecating. He cherished the way she leaned on his arm just a little bit more as they came out into the kitchens, the way she stood a little closer.

He hadn’t realized how much he wanted her until she was gone – until she was cut from his life by his own doing. Jon and Arya were close, and too alike, and sometimes that meant he listened to her and trusted her first and foremost. It’s easy to trust your own shadow, your own reflection.

He had hoped years of separation would lessen the glow of the torch he was carrying, but alas.

The first time he saw her, really saw her, was leaning on Gendry’s arm, laughing and covered in blood – Jon’s heart had leapt into his throat at the sight, eyes tracing every inch of her to see where the blood was stemming from, how she was hurt. He hated the relief that pulsed through him when Gendry offered his hands, wrapped in tattered silk.

She was alive, she was _fine_, she was –

Well, truthfully, he could tell that she wasn’t fine. It wasn’t so obvious, really – she did not jump at loud noises, she did not flinch when someone touched her unexpectedly.

It was true that she pulled away from any touch – and he felt like an idiot for taking so long to notice. Now, he waited for her to reach for him. It didn’t happen very much, but it had only been a few months of freedom.

She wasn’t fine – she was brittle, and at turns unemotional and weepy, stoic and vengeful and self-deprecating to the point of self-hatred. He didn’t know how to help her.

So, they kept going on walks. Then, he persuaded her to eat with him, curled up with pizzas on the couch in his chambers – recently redone. Ghost curled up between them, as a barricade, sprawled with his head on her lap. She ran her fingers across Ghost’s massive ears, toying with them until the beast was like putty in her hands, feeding him the edges of the pizza crusts.

“Ghost missed you,” Jon ventured, voice gruff against the movie playing in the background.

Sansa offered a hesitant smile as she sunk her hands into his fur, scratching under his chin, not meeting Jon’s eyes. “I missed him, too.”

“We all missed you,” he murmured, trying to keep the words firmly in his throat. _Me, most of all. _

The look she gave him then – just a brief flash of her too-blue eyes – was quizzical. “I missed you all, of course.” Then she picked up her book, and turned the page once more, her left hand idly stroking Ghost’s ear.

Jon curled his hands into fists to keep from reaching to her.

***

**SIX MONTHS LATER **

SANSA  
  


It was a crisp fall day when the Stark property officially passed back into her hands – and there was nothing left for her to do, but to take it. It felt like it had been eons since that night at the castle. The scratches on her face looked as pale freckles, now, and only in the moonlight.

She walked the edges of the property by herself, the first time, a pistol carefully cocked in her right hand. The rustle of a rabbit in the brush caused her to nearly leap out of her skin and it took almost ten minutes for her heart to calm its frantic pace.

The second time, she walked the edges casually, daring the noises of the night to scare her. Did they know who she was? What she had survived? She spread her arms wide, beckoning to the moon, the world at large. _You don’t scare me_, she murmured to herself. _Not anymore_.

The third, she called Gendry to accompany her.

She should have called any number of people: Arya, Jon, Bran… But for reasons she did not consider, there was only one person she wanted with her. Sansa had spent the last six months running from the consequences of that night. The sight of his bandaged hands had been enough to send her into a tailspin. The soft curve of his mouth only reminded her of how sweet he had tasted in that one, forbidden, highly ill-advised kiss that she ought to forget right away lest Arya snatch it from her, like a gleaming gold coin that she’d won at a fair when they were children. His eyes traced her form as she disappeared around corners, carefully did not overlap their dining schedules, and generally avoided him at all costs.

It had been Arya, of all people, who called her bluff while she was still in the castle, living under Jon’s protection. “You’ve got to talk to him,” Arya said, chidingly, as she sank into the couch in Sansa’s sitting room, preparing for a movie night that had become tradition between them. 

“Who?” Sansa feigned ignorance.

“Jon,” Arya sighed, ever the burdened younger sister.

Sansa’s surprised “what?” was not feigned at all. “What do you mean?”

Arya snorted, and tucked her feet underneath herself. “You don’t see it?”

Sansa tried very, very hard not to roll her eyes – and waited impatiently, instead, for Arya to divulge this strange secret.

Her younger sister looked at her, quizzical brow firmly in place. “Jon has been trying to date you.”

“Date me?”

Arya nodded. Sansa’s eyes widened as so many of Jon’s actions suddenly made sense – the gazes, the dinners, the long walks around the palace. A flush ran rampant across her cheeks, embarrassed and all too cognizant of how it must look. They had been spending a lot of time together, it would make sense for the broody, quiet man to not tell her upfront that he wanted to pursue something, but rather to allow her to be comfortable, to move at her own pace. It would have been sweet, if she had been at all interested in him, like that. If there hadn’t been someone else holding her attention captive, her heart captive, this entire time.

If only the very idea of spending more time in these palace walls than absolutely necessary wouldn’t kill her. Not today, not the next, but a long-standing rot that would ruin her from the inside out.

This was no place for her, not any longer. 

“Oh.”

Arya offered an uncharacteristically gentle smile. “That’s kind-of what I thought. Let him down gently, will you?”

“Of course,” Sansa replied softly.

“And,” Arya ventured, “if there is another dark-haired man in your life…” Sansa’s eyes caught on her sister’s – grey met blue in total honesty. “You should tell him how you feel, too, Sans.”

Sansa swallowed heavily around her guilt, around her admission of whatever it was between them to her sister, who had loved him once, who may love him still.

Arya continued, voice softer still in the quiet of the room, reaching a hand softly to wrap around her elder sister’s ankle: “It was over between us long before I left. I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but don’t you owe it to yourself to find out what could happen? Now that you’re free?”

Sansa tried to repress the bitter smile that wanted to claw its way onto her face. Free from Joffrey, from Cersei, from the endless nightmare that had become her life – yes. Free from actual nightmares, waking and expecting someone to be there, lurching, waiting to grope her in the darkness, free from persecution and judgment from those who would never (even following an expose written by a neutral third party and endorsed by both Olenna Tyrell and Brienne Tarth) _never_ understand – no. That weight she must carry for all of her life.

That weight, the weight of what she had made of her life – she couldn’t impose that on someone else.

Not even someone like Gendry, with a good head on his shoulders and a spine of steel.

“Okay,” Sansa lied, easily, “I will.”

That had been three months ago.

But she called him, that night, just before her near-ritualistic stroll around the boundary of the house’s immediate property, ready to be brave and true to what she wanted - and he had come for her.

Just like that.


	11. Chapter 11

GENDRY

Gendry didn’t know why she called, all of the sudden, but he was not about to turn her down.

So, he accompanied her through the woods, through the empty halls and rooms filled with ghosts, walking just close enough that he could have grabbed her hand. There was a look in her eyes, one that ached to forget, to forge something new, one that he recognized from that night on the balcony, not too long before. It was a stubbornness, a tenacity that he was beginning to believe was a family trait, but in her, it tasted less of frustration and more of… frustration of a different kind.

Of a kind that said – _tell me your heart, and I’ll tell you mine. Give me your secrets, I’ll trade mine for the privilege of being yours._

So, when Sansa led him inside the old, empty lemon-scented house, he followed, footsteps heavy in the silent halls. When she perched on the generous marble island, he merely looked at her: pretty as a picture, red hair tumbling over her shoulders, contrasting sharply to the overlarge cream sweater, jeans clinging to her thighs as she uncrossed them, in front of him. There was a burning in her eyes, and a fear – what if he rejected her, what if he didn’t want her, after all? For all that she had been an incredible actress, he had seen her, had been able to read her, and wanted to quell those fears immediately.

(It didn’t matter that it had been months since he had seen her, longer still since that fateful night. It didn’t matter at all).

So, he stepped forward slowly, bracketing his hips in-between her thighs.

So, he leaned forward as if to kiss her, before avoiding her lips and pressing a tender kiss to a spot underneath her left ear, enjoying immensely the sharp inhale that resulted. He knew they needed to talk, and they could – and _would_, he promised himself – but later.

Her hands reached for him, entangling in his hair as he kissed a sure path down the soft curve of her neck, his own hands stroking upwards on her dark jeans, thumbs tracing her hipbones before daring to dance upwards to the bare skin of her ribs. He suppressed a moan as she arched into his touch – rough fingertips meeting smooth lace.

Gendry wrapped his broad hands around her waist and brought her flush against him, fitting every soft curve of her body into the angles of his, reveling in the way her eyes fluttered closed and she twined her fingers in his too-long hair. He returned to that spot on her neck that made her shiver, nudging his nose against her ear as he murmured, “What do you want, Sansa?”

Sansa leaned back enough to press her forehead to his: “Everything,” she replied, honesty blazing in her eyes, a smile playing on her swollen lips, knowing that he’d understand what she meant: _you, you, you, and all that entails. _

“Excellent,” Gendry said, kissing her soundly before daring to reply, heart thundering in his chest. “Me too.”

They grinned at each other for a moment – lovesick and hopeful and joyous at the rejoining, at the way it felt like they were always meant to fit together like this, that they had never, really, truly, been apart.

“Sansa,” he asked, quietly.

“Yes?”

“I don’t suppose there’s a bed in this place?”

She laughed, a bright sound in the darkness of the evening, a sharp contrast to the hush of their movements so far, before shaking her head. “Only a couch,” she said.

Gendry grinned wickedly. “Then we’ll have to make do.”

And they did. She stripped out of her jeans and knickers, slipping out of her sweater and gasping as he lifted her back onto the countertop. He slowly kissed his way up, from her ankles to her knees (how had she never known how _electric_ this could feel?) to the junction of her thighs, which spread so willingly for him, for his fingers, for his tongue. It didn’t take long until she came apart under his ministrations, sprawled across the marble countertop with chest heaving and lungs struggling to keep up.

It took only a few minutes before she recovered and lowered herself down from the island with shaky legs, stepping up to Gendry and un-doing his belt buckle, pushing the flannel from his shoulders and stripping off his t-shirt, intent on getting even. But he had none of it, and kissed her until she was dizzy, until they had found their way, stumbling in the darkness, into the living room with the couch – the one piece of furniture she’d had delivered as of yet – taking full advantage of its length.

Gendry listened to the way her moans echoed in the hollow room, breathing new life into a space that had been lost to kindness long ago. It wasn’t quite romance, not just lust, but something fledgling, something new. Something crafted from a year of subterfuge and near-obsession and dreams of her, dreams of the sounds she made, over and over again. 

They were better than he could have ever dreamed.

After, they ordered dinner in, eating take-out Dornish and drinking too much red wine and falling asleep on the couch together, her head on his chest, wrapped in his flannel. She listened to the sound of his heartbeat, reassuring in its steadiness, as his hands traced circles and nonsensical patterns across her back. She didn’t mean to fall asleep – hadn’t fallen asleep so easily in years – but with him, with Gendry, it seemed simple. Almost easy.

When they woke in the morning, he kissed her forehead gently, locking his arms into place around her waist as he felt her tense to run, as he thought she might.

“I want to be here,” he said softly, conscious of her staccato heartbeat and her nervous blue eyes staring into his, “for as long as you’ll have me.”

He felt her sigh, felt her relax into him. “I want to have you,” she said, intending to return the sentiment – but he laughed. And she realized what she said and blushed – _blushed_ – and laughed, too.

Gendry brought a hand to cradle her cheek and wind through her tangled hair, the scars on his hands brushing the scars on her cheeks, pulling her face to his for a kiss, confident in his affections.

She drowned in him, willingly, reveling in the burning of her skin as he pressed against her. 

“Anytime,” he said, roguish and joyous.

Sansa grinned, and felt as though her face would crack from happiness.

It was enough. It was more than enough. It was more than she ever thought she’d know.

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you what it has meant for you to follow along with me on this strange journey. this is not one of my top fics, but it has been so different to write and explore and I have truly loved it, so thank you for your encouragement and kind words. stay safe, everyone. spread kindness not the virus. etc etc. <3

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading - i hope you enjoyed it. as always, you can come fangirl with me on my tumblr: jolie_unfiltrd. 
> 
> <3


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